Mark Titus thinks Ohio State has the worst fans in college basketball.
In the latest episode of Mostly Hoops, the former Ohio State walk-on and current Barstool Sports personality ripped Buckeye Nation for its reaction to the team’s 66-64 loss to TCU.
“We have the worst fans in the world, Ohio State. Ohio State basketball fans are the worst fans in the world,” Titus said. “They’re the worst. They’re literally the worst. They watch football all year; they don’t even pay attention to the basketball program. They parachute in around late January, early February. They look up the rankings, and if we’re not ranked in the top 10, they’re just like, ‘Everything sucks, fire everybody. This is terrible.’ They have no idea what they’re talking about.
“They don’t even know the names of the goddamn players. And they bitch like they want us to be a top 10 program, which I do too, but like, the reason the top 10 programs are the top 10 programs is because they carry themselves like top 10 programs, 365 days a year. Fans are invested in the program and people are coming to the games, and the people are studying the recruits and, like, fucking — they pour their passion into this. They don’t just pop in and say, ‘Oh, we’re in the tournament? OK, I’ll watch that. I’ll sit down and watch this game.’ And then we lose the game. And you’re like, ‘Fire the coach.’ It’s absurd.”
“They parachute in around late January, early February. They look up the rankings, and if we’re not ranked in the top 10, they’re just like, ‘Everything sucks, fire everybody. This is terrible.’ They have no idea what they’re talking about.”– Mark Titus on Ohio State basketball fans
Titus took particular issue with fans criticizing Jake Diebler’s coaching in Ohio State’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2022, pointing to the Buckeyes’ final possession as an example of overblown reactions. Still, Titus made it clear his rant wasn’t meant to fully absolve Diebler, whom he said deserves some — but not all — of the blame.
“This happens all the time and our dumbass fucking fans just come in and they’re just like, ‘I don’t know who that guy — who’s No. 1 for our team? I kind of like this guy. We should give the ball to No. 1.’ Where have you been all season? What is this? I can’t stand it, dude, it drives me crazy,” Titus said. “I’m actually getting pissed off about it, and that’s not even a rant to defend Jake. It’s a rant to — if you care about the program, care about the program tomorrow. Now the season’s over, right? Guess what North Carolina is gonna do (after losing to VCU). Tomorrow, North Carolina is all hands on deck. Figure this shit out. They’re like, we have to figure this out.
“Ohio State fans are gonna be like, ‘What’s football recruiting look like? Who we got coming up — anybody look at the football schedule?’ They just move on to the next thing, and then they wait for basketball season to roll back around and then demand that we’re one of the best programs in the country. It doesn’t work that way.”
Titus closed by calling on both fans and the athletic department to invest in the program year-round.
“You have to invest. You have to invest money,” Titus said. “We don’t have any fucking money in the basketball program. We don’t have any fan support in the basketball program. It’s absurd, but you still have the expectation we should be Duke or Kansas or whatever. It pisses me off.”
