In a coaching career that’s spanned more than 30 years, Mike Wells has coached for six different NBA teams, winning two championships at basketball’s highest level. He became a head coach in Australia’s National Basketball League. But there was one place much closer to home where Wells always dreamed of coaching.
Growing up about an hour northeast of Columbus in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Wells is a lifelong Ohio State fan – so much so that he woke up at 3:30 a.m. to watch the Ohio State/Michigan football game while living in Australia for the past two years. So when Jake Diebler called Wells and offered him the chance to join Ohio State’s staff as an assistant coach, it wasn’t a hard decision for Wells to say yes.
“The Ohio State University,” Wells said, emphasizing the word “The,” when asked why he chose to join the staff. “I think everybody that's grown up in the state of Ohio, like, if you're not thinking about having Ohio State at some point, I don't know. I think everybody grows up wanting to be a part of this university at some point.”
“My journey was probably really different than a lot of people, and Adelaide, Australia ended up leading me here and the opportunity. However it gets here, I've always wanted to be a part of college basketball, high-major program. This opportunity presented itself, I couldn't pass it up.”
Wells said he had an “unbelievable experience” coaching the Adelaide 36ers, who made the NBL Championship Series last season in his second year as head coach, but his family wanted to return to the United States. His eldest son, Trenton, is an incoming freshman at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, and his parents still live in Mount Vernon, so there was no better place for their return to America than Ohio.
“I had a really, really good team over there. Everybody was signed, super proud of what we accomplished there. And we came home as a family, and we were trying to figure out what's next in our lives,” Wells said. “If an opportunity like this came along, we were going to jump at it to stay in the United States, number one. The fact that it's here was a no-brainer for myself and my family.”
Wells described his sons as “brainwashed” Buckeye fans, saying they didn’t miss an Ohio State game even while they were living in Australia.
“They'll be totally at the games and into it. They've got their jerseys already, it's nothing new,” Wells said.
“I think everybody that's grown up in the state of Ohio ... I think everybody grows up wanting to be a part of this university at some point.”– Mike Wells on his dream of coaching at Ohio State
Even as Wells’ coaching career took him all over the country and even the world, he never stopped following the Buckeyes. One of his favorite memories as a Buckeye fan was watching Ohio State beat Auburn in the Sweet 16 of the 1999 NCAA Tournament – a game he had the chance to watch courtside, behind the Auburn bench, thanks to a generous offer from Charles Barkley, who flew Wells to Knoxville, Tennessee, to watch the game with him.
“I was a video coordinator with the Houston Rockets. Charles Barkley called me, he was on our team at that point. He knew I was an Ohio State fan. I was the only guy, he was like, ‘Hey, you want to go to the game today?’ I'm like, ‘What are you talking about? The game's in like three hours.’ He's like, ‘Just meet me at Sugar Land Airport,’” Wells said. “So he had a private jet because he wanted to watch Auburn play, so I drive out there because I'm like 30 years old and he has a private plane land, and we go to the game and we sit behind the Auburn bench and I'm cheering on Scoonie Penn and the guys because Ohio State won.”
Now, Wells is part of a staff trying to lead Ohio State back to NCAA Tournament success. Wells, who replaced Joel Justus on Ohio State’s staff from last season, said his primary focus will be to help the Buckeyes evolve offensively. He doesn’t believe the Buckeyes need drastic improvement in that area, though, after ranking third in the Big Ten in field goal percentage (49.1%) and fifth in the conference in points per game (79.3) last season.
“Offensive focus as a broad stroke, and then how we play and how we're getting to things and how efficient we are,” Wells said when asked what his areas of focus will be. “There was a lot of statistical categories that this team was great in the Big Ten in and in the country, so trying to be better at the things we were good at, and then things that maybe we weren't so good at, making a marginal improvement.”
One specific concept Wells has brought to Ohio State is teaching players to make .5 decisions, meaning that players must be able to decide what they’re going to do with the ball within a half-second of getting the ball in their hands.
“A .5 decision is knowing what you're going to do with the ball before you catch it,” Wells said. “The catchword in the NBA these days is conceptual offense. You don't see a lot of people run five-man plays, or even four-man plays, where the ball starts here and it goes from A to B to C to D. You don't see that stuff a ton anymore. You'll see some starter actions and things like that. So .5 reads isn't anything that we haven't done. Conceptual offense is the buzzword for a lot of young coaches in the NBA. But what that is is know what you're doing before you catch the ball. Drive it, shoot it, pass it – know what you're going to do, read the closeout, play basketball.
“So just trying to help our guys get more simple, get down to a very granular level, and be really decisive on what we're trying to do, because we know how physical and rugged and holding and grabbing the Big Ten’s about, and we want to try to get an advantage and keep the advantage.”
Wells believes his recent head coaching experience can be an asset for the Buckeyes, too, though Diebler will be calling the shots.
“As a 29-year assistant, number one, you know your job is to get very granular and to focus on your area of expertise and to help those players or help the head coach, or know your area of focus. You've got to be the best at it,” Wells said. “As a head coach, you have a more broad view, you have to look from 10,000 feet and take an overview of the whole program and things. And now for me, being from that back down to this, is to help Jake and help this program and hopefully identify things and know what he's going through, know the stress and the problems and things that he's dealing with, and to be that guy. Hopefully I'm two steps ahead of him, and I can help him head off anything that comes our way.”
Ohio State forward Amare Bynum said Wells “brings a lot” to the program.
“He’s seen what it really looks like playing fast (in the NBA), and actually playing fast and playing slowed-down and reading every option,” Bynum said.
