Ohio State Transfer Guard Gabe Cupps Ready to Flash Full Potential Off Season-Ending Injury

By Andy Anders on July 19, 2025 at 8:35 am
Gabe Cupps
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There was a faint familiarity for Gabe Cupps when he first walked down the hallways of the Schottenstein Center as an Ohio State Buckeye.

The 2022 Ohio Mr. Basketball is back in his home state after spending his high school career at Centerville High School in Dayton. He saw 26 minutes of action as a freshman for Indiana in Value City Arena in February 2024, then returned on the Hoosiers’ bench while injured this past January.

Cupps’ loose ties to Jerome Schottenstein’s namesake date back to his childhood, when he and his father Brook, Centerville’s head coach, would watch Ohio high school state tournaments there.

“I remember because I would always miss some elementary and middle school classes for it,” Cupps said with a chuckle. “But just being in the Schott with him brought back a lot of memories.”

Now that he calls the Schott home, Cupps believes his third collegiate season is the time for him to start flexing his true potential after an injury that cost him all but four games of 2024-25.

“100 percent,” Cupps said. “Coming back from injury, I feel like I see the game in a very different way. And I think all players do once they've had more time to just kind of watch the college game, especially being in it. But I think now I'm much more comfortable playing freely with who I think I am and the player that I want to be.”

It was an injury to then-Indiana senior guard Xavier Johnson that thrust Cupps into a starting role he wasn’t fully anticipating as a freshman.

Cupps played 33 games and started 22 that season for the Hoosiers, though he posted just 2.6 points, 1.2 assists and 0.7 steals per game. He shot a respectable 35.9% from 3-point range, though he was an inefficient 36.7% inside the arc. 

“Even though I didn't produce how I wanted to, you can't trade that experience for anything,” Cupps said. “Now I just feel like the game's slowing down for me, and I can help guys that haven't either played in the Big Ten or haven't played in college at all. So I feel like I'm a guy that people can ask questions to and just be a source of experience for guys.”

That’s all the proof in the pudding so far for Cupps, who was a 247Sports composite top-100 prospect in the 2023 recruiting class. He tried to play through what was later revealed to be a meniscus tear at the start of the 2024-25 campaign, made it four games in November while scoring no points, then needed season-ending surgery.

Ohio State coach Jake Diebler’s relationship with Cupps dates back to the redshirt sophomore’s days at Centerville. Diebler’s known Cupps’ father even longer. Even if the stats aren’t there yet, Diebler believes they will come and that Cupps’ impact as a defender and locker room leader goes beyond box scores.

“The one thing I know about Gabe is he's really tough, he knows the game at a high level and his intangibles, that the way he can impact the game may not always show up with stats,” Diebler said in June. “However, he also can produce. He can make shots, he knows how to read the game coming off ball screens and zoom actions, which we're going to be doing a lot of.”

That leadership is something Diebler and his staff actively sought in the transfer portal. Add in that Cupps reminds Diebler of himself, and it’s no wonder why he was picked as Ohio State’s first portal add this offseason, committing on March 26.

“I’ve just always seen part of me in him,” Diebler said. “He's better than I was, but I've always seen a lot of who I was as a player in him and I just, I like that. And I think it impacts winning, I think it's important, I think it's impactful. We felt like we needed to raise kind of our team internal leadership, and I think he certainly does that.”

Cupps might remind Diebler of himself, but Diebler reminds Cupps of his aforementioned father. Alongside proximity to home, development and what he felt would be good pieces surrounding him, it was a top reason why he chose the Buckeyes.

“The way Diebler coaches is, he's hard on guys, but he also cares a ton about them,” Cupps said. “And he's with us in the trenches a lot. So, I think that's the biggest thing to me is like, he's not going to ask us to do something that he doesn't truly believe in and that he won't go to the ends of the earth to do himself. I think that reminds me a lot of my dad in high school with how he coaches. So, it's been very comforting to kind of have a sense of familiarity with the coaching style.”

Cupps’ fit on the 2025-26 Ohio State roster is interesting. The Buckeyes have an established starting backcourt in soon-to-be four-time team captain Bruce Thornton and sophomore returning starter John Mobley Jr. Fellow redshirt sophomore Taison Chatman, also off a season-ending knee injury, will compete with Cupps to be the first guard off the bench.

There’s already a chemistry building between Cupps and his fellow backcourt mates, he said. Depth could be useful for Ohio State, which put 36.2 minutes per game on Thornton’s legs last year. And three-guard lineups could be on the table in certain scenarios.

“Coach Diebler was very adamant that the guys that are going to help the team win are going to play,” Cupps said. “And so I think Taison, Juni, Bruce, those guys are all great and I've had a ton of fun working with them and playing against them and stuff like that. And I think we can play together. Even if we play three of us at one time, we might be undersized, but I think all of us are tough enough to really stand our ground. And I think we play well together.”

Whatever the exact parameters of his role are this year, Cupps could be a cog for the program long-term with three years of eligibility remaining. But he’s excited about what the year ahead could hold.

“Getting with guys and coaches that are about the right stuff has been really refreshing,” Cupps said. “I think we have a chance to be really good, and guys are coming together. We all care about each other and want what's best for the team. So, I think when you have those things, you got a shot.”

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