Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / Is Ohio State Basketball Broken? And If So, Can It Be Fixed?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Friday, March fourteenth, I'm
- 0:03Speaker 1: your host, tom Or. The Texas game is in one
- 0:05Speaker 1: hundred and sixty nine days. The game makeets Fashion in
- 0:07Speaker 1: two hundred and sixty days. If you're playing your next event,
- 0:11Speaker 1: make it unforgettable with Grateful Griddle, Columbus's favorite food truck
- 0:14Speaker 1: serving up Smashburger's gourmet sandwiches and good vibes. Book You're
- 0:17Speaker 1: catering today at gratefulgriddleoh dot com. Talking to Ohio State
- 0:21Speaker 1: basketball today is a topic that has gotten people a
- 0:25Speaker 1: little fired up this week, which is a little bit
- 0:28Speaker 1: abnormal for Ohio State fans and on the Ohio State
- 0:30Speaker 1: fan base, joined by Tony Gerderman if fuck Huddle dot com, Tony,
- 0:34Speaker 1: this was an Ohio State basketball season that looked like, Oh,
- 0:38Speaker 1: this is gonna be better season than maybe you expected,
- 0:42Speaker 1: and then everything just kind of went directly to heck
- 0:46Speaker 1: right at the end of the year.
- 0:49Speaker 2: We've seen this show before at seems, where you see
- 0:52Speaker 2: a lot of the possibilities when they're playing well and
- 0:56Speaker 2: they can beat just about anybody at any given time,
- 0:59Speaker 2: but then also lose to anybody at any given time
- 1:02Speaker 2: and that's exactly the kind of inconsistency that can undo
- 1:05Speaker 2: you at at any point in the season, and especially
- 1:08Speaker 2: down the stretch when it kind of just builds and builds,
- 1:11Speaker 2: and so this is not a very This is a
- 1:13Speaker 2: bad close out basically for the Buckeyes when they kept
- 1:16Speaker 2: needing to just if you win a couple of games,
- 1:18Speaker 2: you're gonna you're in, Like you're on the bubble right now.
- 1:22Speaker 2: Just assure yourself by get some insurance and win a
- 1:26Speaker 2: game here against teams that you should be able to
- 1:28Speaker 2: be and they just choose to do it.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Yeah, probably about one week ago you and I were
- 1:34Speaker 1: doing a show and it was essentially okay. They won
- 1:38Speaker 1: their first two games of the sort of home stretch.
- 1:41Speaker 1: They beat Nebraska and then USC I think, and then
- 1:46Speaker 1: all they had to do was either beat Indiana or
- 1:48Speaker 1: win their first game with the Big Ten Tournament. You
- 1:50Speaker 1: know both, they would have been incomfortably. You would do one,
- 1:52Speaker 1: You're probably in. You do you know, you win two
- 1:55Speaker 1: games a Big Ten tournament, you're probably in. I mean,
- 1:57Speaker 1: there's there were lots of ways they could have gotten in.
- 2:00Speaker 1: It is not selection shun day now, they're not officially out,
- 2:02Speaker 1: but I don't think they're probably going to be on
- 2:05Speaker 1: the happy side of the bubble this year. And there
- 2:09Speaker 1: has been a lot of very loud, very angry this
- 2:13Speaker 1: should never happen to Ohio State. Why is Ohio State
- 2:16Speaker 1: basketball like this? And you know, I have theories and
- 2:21Speaker 1: I have stuff that I've shared on our message board
- 2:23Speaker 1: that has gotten people very annoyed with me. But that's fine.
- 2:25Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about some of that a little
- 2:27Speaker 1: bit later. But I think let's start the conversation with this.
- 2:32Speaker 1: What is a reasonable expectation for Ohio State? What is
- 2:36Speaker 1: sort of the baseline for Okay, this is at least
- 2:39Speaker 1: a reasonably successful season or span let's maybe even say
- 2:43Speaker 1: span of five seasons for Ohio State men's basketball.
- 2:48Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm thinking about that, and I tweeted,
- 2:53Speaker 2: I'm tweeting about this, and every we're all tweeting about it,
- 2:55Speaker 2: and you know, I said something to the effective, Yeah,
- 2:59Speaker 2: they should make the the tournament every year, and then
- 3:01Speaker 2: I went back, I'm like, should they have they? Because
- 3:04Speaker 2: Tom the NCAA Tournament has been sixty four or sixty
- 3:08Speaker 2: eight teams for forty years now. This will be the
- 3:11Speaker 2: fortieth year of it. Ohio State has made the tournament
- 3:13Speaker 2: twenty two times in those forty years, assuming that they're
- 3:17Speaker 2: not going to make it this year, so about half
- 3:19Speaker 2: the time they make the tournament. That mod have made
- 3:22Speaker 2: it nine years, nine times in his thirteen years, and
- 3:26Speaker 2: Chris Holtman made it four in his six years, and
- 3:28Speaker 2: I think, well one of those years was the COVID year,
- 3:30Speaker 2: so that wasn't an option. But like those two guys
- 3:36Speaker 2: have kind of ruined the curve here because even you know,
- 3:39Speaker 2: O'Brien Randiers, Gary Williams, Eldon Miller, like they made it
- 3:45Speaker 2: a little under half the time all told. So like basically,
- 3:49Speaker 2: what isn't an acceptable season at Ohio State? This one?
- 3:55Speaker 2: Like based on average, it's this one, and which is
- 3:59Speaker 2: you know where it's not great. I think obviously you'd
- 4:02Speaker 2: rather have Sweet sixteen no no postseason next year, Sweet
- 4:06Speaker 2: sixteen no postseason the next year. That's how you'd rather
- 4:08Speaker 2: do your like fifty percent it's but this is basically
- 4:14Speaker 2: this is not an unusual season for Ohio State, as
- 4:17Speaker 2: all of the Ohio State fans listening, No, what we're
- 4:20Speaker 2: unusual seasons was what bad Moda was doing. And we
- 4:22Speaker 2: can get into why that was happening if you want,
- 4:24Speaker 2: because I think when we talk about that, there there's
- 4:27Speaker 2: some data there that was happening for thad Mada that
- 4:30Speaker 2: has not happened for anybody else.
- 4:32Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thad Mada era is the thing that
- 4:34Speaker 1: everyone sort of points to and go, well, why can't
- 4:36Speaker 1: they just do that all the time. It's like, well,
- 4:38Speaker 1: because that's not the historical norm. That's not You look
- 4:42Speaker 1: at the Ohio State list of tournament appearances and it
- 4:45Speaker 1: looks like the solar cycles where you know, the sun
- 4:47Speaker 1: is like high solar levels where you have a bunch
- 4:50Speaker 1: of solar storms and stuff, and then low so you know,
- 4:52Speaker 1: low levels of filer activity, or you know the La
- 4:56Speaker 1: Nina and El Nino ocean cycles like whatever. There's like
- 4:59Speaker 1: these nat cycles in the universe. That's what Lake Ohio
- 5:02Speaker 1: State basketball is where it's like, yeah, they they made
- 5:06Speaker 1: the NCAA Tournament, and they made they made the Sweet
- 5:09Speaker 1: sixteen in nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety two, and
- 5:11Speaker 1: then they went into a lull for seven years, and
- 5:12Speaker 1: then they made it once, and then they went into
- 5:14Speaker 1: a lull for eight years, and then they made it
- 5:16Speaker 1: five times in seven years, and now they've been in
- 5:20Speaker 1: an eight year lull and you know, at some point
- 5:22Speaker 1: are they going to come back? Yeah? Probably, but you know,
- 5:25Speaker 1: looking at sweet sixteens in two thousand and seven, twenty ten,
- 5:29Speaker 1: twenty eleven, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, and nothing since and
- 5:33Speaker 1: only one in the fifteen years. But you know before that, like,
- 5:40Speaker 1: that's that's the outlier. That is not that that is
- 5:42Speaker 1: the exception, That is not the rule. And you know,
- 5:45Speaker 1: you've you've posted about this a bunch on our board before.
- 5:47Speaker 1: But there's lots of reasons why the thad Mada era is.
- 5:50Speaker 1: You know, why don't they just do this all the time? Like, well,
- 5:53Speaker 1: there are actual answers to that question.
- 5:55Speaker 2: Yeah, And then I tweeted about this as well. Where
- 5:58Speaker 2: so that might have got to Ohio State two two
- 6:00Speaker 2: thousand and five, that was his first year. In the
- 6:03Speaker 2: two thousand and six three two thousand and eight recruiting cycles, nationally,
- 6:07Speaker 2: there were eleven top fifty kids in Ohio and that
- 6:11Speaker 2: three year span, six of them signed with Ohio State.
- 6:13Speaker 2: So that three year span, there were eleven top fifty
- 6:16Speaker 2: kids from two thousand and nine to twenty seventeen. The
- 6:20Speaker 2: rest of that minus recruiting, there were seven top fifty
- 6:24Speaker 2: kids in Ohio, only two of whom signed with Ohio State.
- 6:28Speaker 2: You started getting into some of the like you know,
- 6:31Speaker 2: prep school, basketball school type of things where the basketball academies,
- 6:37Speaker 2: if you will, start to like they they're that guy's
- 6:40Speaker 2: an Ohio kid, but not really. But then you also
- 6:42Speaker 2: have AAU which basically eliminates in state recruiting with you've
- 6:49Speaker 2: never had Ohio State has never been great, they've never
- 6:51Speaker 2: been at their peak or they've never been really really
- 6:53Speaker 2: good without impactful Ohio players. And they've got some this year,
- 6:59Speaker 2: but they don't have enough around it. But you can
- 7:02Speaker 2: go back all time where go back to Fred Taylor
- 7:06Speaker 2: when he's got Jerry Lucas and and Halchek and you know,
- 7:10Speaker 2: Bobby Knight, like these are all Ohio kids. You go
- 7:12Speaker 2: back to Gary Williams where he's got Jay Burson, go
- 7:17Speaker 2: back to Brandy Ares where he's got Jim Jackson and
- 7:21Speaker 2: Perry Carter and Trag Lee and Mark Baker, always Ohio guys,
- 7:26Speaker 2: even Jim O'Brien with Michael Red And then you get
- 7:30Speaker 2: into the the Fortune of Thad Matta where it's you
- 7:36Speaker 2: have the Ohio guys we can get into some of these,
- 7:38Speaker 2: but then also two two kids from Indianapolis and Greg
- 7:41Speaker 2: Oden and Mike Conley, and then Ohio State has also
- 7:44Speaker 2: done really well in Illinois. So it's like these these
- 7:47Speaker 2: border ish type states. But mainly if you don't have
- 7:51Speaker 2: anything in Ohio, if the Ohio talent is down, Ohio
- 7:53Speaker 2: State's talent has been down, is going to be down.
- 7:56Speaker 2: And that's just the way it's always been. It will
- 7:59Speaker 2: always be so then you've got to do something about it.
- 8:04Speaker 2: And Tom, let me let me just read you. The
- 8:08Speaker 2: Ohio State's last great team was the the tw ten
- 8:12Speaker 2: twenty eleven team where Jared Solinger was a freshman and
- 8:15Speaker 2: Aaron Craft was a freshman and they were like thirty
- 8:18Speaker 2: one and three and they lost in the sweet sixteen
- 8:21Speaker 2: on a buzzer beater to Kentucky. But Jared Solinger Ohio,
- 8:25Speaker 2: William You from Toledo, John Diebler from Upper Sandusky, David
- 8:29Speaker 2: Lighty from Cleveland, Deshaun Thomas from way out West and
- 8:32Speaker 2: Fort Wayne, Aaron Kraft from Finley, Dallas Lauderdale from Solon,
- 8:37Speaker 2: Jordan Cybert from Cincinnati. They this was all essentially Ohio
- 8:44Speaker 2: and once you got once you get away from that,
- 8:47Speaker 2: and not just get away from it, but once the
- 8:49Speaker 2: talent gets away from Ohio and there's no fence because
- 8:53Speaker 2: there's no loyalty, it's all aau. There is no old
- 8:56Speaker 2: State U like college football and college basketball are completely different,
- 9:00Speaker 2: though college football is starting to, you know, look a
- 9:03Speaker 2: little bit more like it. If you don't have Ohio recruiting,
- 9:08Speaker 2: then you're not going to have a great system, a
- 9:12Speaker 2: great program at Ohio State. Now that's just history. Now
- 9:17Speaker 2: things are changing, so Ohio State could change with it.
- 9:20Speaker 2: But even then, Tom goes back to your question, like, well,
- 9:23Speaker 2: what is acceptable? Well, forever this has been acceptable because
- 9:27Speaker 2: this is what people have become used to, and the
- 9:30Speaker 2: fact that it keeps happening means that it's acceptable.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Right, this is this is maybe not the standard that
- 9:39Speaker 1: everyone would like it to be, but this is kind
- 9:40Speaker 1: of the standard where this you know, a year like this,
- 9:44Speaker 1: even two years like this, doesn't usually get you fired.
- 9:46Speaker 1: So you're gonna have, you may have. We'll see what
- 9:50Speaker 1: next year looks like. And with the portal, you can
- 9:51Speaker 1: obviously change things quite a bit. But I've seen lots
- 9:55Speaker 1: of comments about well, you know, I don't understand why
- 9:58Speaker 1: Ohio State doesn't also pay a like really elite coach,
- 10:01Speaker 1: and you know, just have to I went through. This
- 10:04Speaker 1: is a couple of weeks ago now, but I went
- 10:05Speaker 1: through and like looked at, okay, the top ten coaches
- 10:08Speaker 1: in terms of football salaries, and how many of those coaches,
- 10:11Speaker 1: how many of those schools also have a top ten
- 10:13Speaker 1: coach in terms of basketball salary? And I think the
- 10:15Speaker 1: only one that was even close to it was Alabama.
- 10:18Speaker 1: And they're not paying Kalin the boor nearly what they got,
- 10:21Speaker 1: you know, what they were paying Nick Saban, And I
- 10:24Speaker 1: will point you to the fact that Alabama was in
- 10:26Speaker 1: the RelA Quest Ball this year and not in the
- 10:28Speaker 1: college football playoffs. So you know, I think the real
- 10:32Speaker 1: question here is you're mad now, and that's fine. You're
- 10:34Speaker 1: allowed to be mad now, that's fine. A month and
- 10:37Speaker 1: a half from now, are you still gonna be mad
- 10:40Speaker 1: or are you gonna be thinking about football? Because as
- 10:42Speaker 1: someone who has been in the Ohio State content business
- 10:44Speaker 1: for years and years and years, allow me to assure
- 10:46Speaker 1: you you're mad now. Six weeks from now, you won't
- 10:50Speaker 1: be able to name five players on the Ohio State
- 10:51Speaker 1: basketball team because you're gonna be thinking about who the
- 10:53Speaker 1: third string so strong safety is like that's I don't
- 10:57Speaker 1: know what to tell you, Like this is how it is.
- 10:59Speaker 1: There a small, small subset of the Ohio State fan
- 11:02Speaker 1: base that cares more about basketball than football, and that's great.
- 11:06Speaker 1: And those people, you know, there are people who care
- 11:08Speaker 1: more about about hockey or more about baseball or what like. Cool. Great,
- 11:13Speaker 1: it is a small subset of the Ohio State fan base.
- 11:15Speaker 1: And if you know, I think everyone needs to understand
- 11:20Speaker 1: the modern realities of college athletics, which is there is
- 11:24Speaker 1: a there's only so much money. Ohio State ran a
- 11:26Speaker 1: deficit last year in their athletic department. There's only so
- 11:29Speaker 1: much money under the house settlement, which is still kind
- 11:32Speaker 1: of getting sorted out a little bit but is coming.
- 11:35Speaker 1: There's gonna be money going to players now there's less
- 11:37Speaker 1: money going out. How much money are you willing to
- 11:40Speaker 1: divert from the football program? You as an Ohio State fan,
- 11:43Speaker 1: if you were in charge, how much money are you
- 11:45Speaker 1: going to divert from the football program to pay for
- 11:47Speaker 1: the basketball program? You want really want a small forward
- 11:50Speaker 1: on the basketball team. You want to center on the
- 11:52Speaker 1: basketball team next year? Okay, where on the football team.
- 11:55Speaker 1: Are you taking less money? Are you going to take
- 11:57Speaker 1: a player away from the football team to put that
- 12:00Speaker 1: center on the basketball team? And next November or January
- 12:06Speaker 1: are you going to think, thank goodness, there's a center
- 12:09Speaker 1: on the basketball team who I like, and you know, hey,
- 12:13Speaker 1: they don't have you know, sure the right tackle spot. Yeah,
- 12:16Speaker 1: that'll probably cost us in the college football playoff. But listen,
- 12:19Speaker 1: we have a center on the basketball team. Allow me
- 12:22Speaker 1: to assure you. I see the numbers on how much
- 12:26Speaker 1: people read watch about Ohio State basketball compared to o
- 12:29Speaker 1: Higo State football. You don't care as much. You are
- 12:32Speaker 1: mad now, you don't care as much. Like maybe you
- 12:35Speaker 1: will in a month, maybe, but probably not. Go on
- 12:39Speaker 1: our board in six weeks and look at how many
- 12:41Speaker 1: football threads there are during the football off season. Ask
- 12:44Speaker 1: comparter to how many basketball threads there are during the
- 12:46Speaker 1: basketball off season. There's only so much money. Does that
- 12:50Speaker 1: mean it's impossible to win? No? But again, if you
- 12:52Speaker 1: look at we put together. I had someone on our
- 12:55Speaker 1: board ask about you know, well, why can't they just
- 12:58Speaker 1: do why can't they just do what everyone else does? Like,
- 13:03Speaker 1: it's crazy that there's not you know that they're not
- 13:06Speaker 1: any better at basketball in an athletic department that's this big.
- 13:09Speaker 1: And I went through and looked at the other ten
- 13:13Speaker 1: top biggest athletic departments by budget, which is sort of
- 13:16Speaker 1: a decent proxy for, like, you know, this is what
- 13:19Speaker 1: a big athletic department is. Tell me what these ten
- 13:22Speaker 1: schools all have in common. Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, LSU,
- 13:26Speaker 1: Texas A and M Florida, Penn State, Oklahoma. I would
- 13:29Speaker 1: submit that the answer is all of them. They're better
- 13:32Speaker 1: at football than they are at basketball broadly. And of
- 13:36Speaker 1: those ten schools, going back to twenty fifteen, there were
- 13:39Speaker 1: a total of five conference titles for those two in
- 13:42Speaker 1: basketball for those ten programs, forty three NCAA tournament appearances,
- 13:49Speaker 1: fifteen Sweet sixteens, six elitates three final fours for ten
- 13:52Speaker 1: schools over ten seasons. So you're averaging zero point three
- 13:56Speaker 1: final fours for those ten programs. Ohio State has not
- 14:01Speaker 1: made a Sweet sixteen in those ten years. That's absolutely true.
- 14:04Speaker 1: Several others have only made zero or one Sweet sixteen.
- 14:07Speaker 1: This is kind of what it is when you were
- 14:09Speaker 1: a big football program.
- 14:11Speaker 2: Well, I had somebody of us on the border the
- 14:14Speaker 2: Twitter say that, well, I would like to at least
- 14:16Speaker 2: be what Iowa is on basketball, and it's like Iowa
- 14:19Speaker 2: has made the tournament one more time than Ohio State
- 14:22Speaker 2: and like since Chris Holtman came to town. So you
- 14:27Speaker 2: are like this is but I'm again, I do think
- 14:31Speaker 2: Ohio State should be better in basketball. There's I'd say
- 14:35Speaker 2: there's no reason they shouldn't be, but for whatever reason,
- 14:37Speaker 2: they continue to just this is what they are and
- 14:39Speaker 2: it's because it's allowed and it is it's acceptable. There's
- 14:44Speaker 2: nobody to make it like I'm not standing for this.
- 14:47Speaker 2: There's no money guy that is like this is my program.
- 14:53Speaker 2: This is not going to happen under my watch. There's
- 14:55Speaker 2: no Uncle Phil here for Ohio State basketball. And it's
- 14:59Speaker 2: more of a like, uh, just I'll do what I
- 15:02Speaker 2: can type of thing. And the other thing is tom
- 15:05Speaker 2: it is something I said I think I said on
- 15:07Speaker 2: the message boarder on Twitter, like make the right purchases
- 15:10Speaker 2: because you didn't like this was not like I understand
- 15:15Speaker 2: the timing was pretty bad for all of this, like
- 15:16Speaker 2: ross Byorke making the higher in between jobs and like
- 15:21Speaker 2: you've got to get it done type of thing. Bring
- 15:25Speaker 2: putting together a roster, the the Bradshaw and the Stewart thing.
- 15:30Speaker 2: Like those those programs that lost them were just fine
- 15:33Speaker 2: losing them, Like they you paid a bunch for them,
- 15:36Speaker 2: paid for Michie Johnson and that you know he left.
- 15:39Speaker 2: He left because the freshman was beating out, beating him out,
- 15:42Speaker 2: and rightfully so. But like you got to make better
- 15:46Speaker 2: decisions with the money that you have, like they they
- 15:49Speaker 2: were willing to do some spending, but you got to
- 15:52Speaker 2: make You got to be smarter with the money and
- 15:55Speaker 2: and if you are, then you can do some things.
- 15:57Speaker 2: Because we always talk about just the transient nature of
- 16:00Speaker 2: college sports, college basketball especially like you can be a
- 16:02Speaker 2: new team the next year and make a run, but
- 16:06Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you're going to do it the year
- 16:07Speaker 2: after that. I think you feel bad for Bruce Thornton
- 16:10Speaker 2: because to be able to keep a guy for three
- 16:12Speaker 2: years and we'll see if they can keep him for
- 16:14Speaker 2: four a starting point guard for three or four years,
- 16:18Speaker 2: and this is what you've done with it? Is it
- 16:20Speaker 2: complete waste?
- 16:21Speaker 1: Yeah, he's had a really really good career and he's
- 16:24Speaker 1: going to go down as like this great underappreciated player
- 16:26Speaker 1: because a lot of times the supporting cast around him
- 16:29Speaker 1: was just not good enough. And you know, think about
- 16:32Speaker 1: how much the supporting cast around him has changed over
- 16:34Speaker 1: the years. I was trying to think back, like two
- 16:36Speaker 1: years back, naming how many Ohio State basketball players can
- 16:39Speaker 1: I name, because boy, there are a lot of names
- 16:42Speaker 1: that have come and gone over those couple of years.
- 16:45Speaker 1: Bruce Dhorton has, He's probably going to play his career
- 16:47Speaker 1: with something like thirty different players, maybe more than that.
- 16:50Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy how fast the roster's turning over there.
- 16:54Speaker 1: But you know, I think your point there in terms
- 16:57Speaker 1: of you're not necessarily that far off in terms of
- 17:02Speaker 1: you missed the tournament this year by probably one to
- 17:05Speaker 1: two wins. You missed the tournament last year by probably
- 17:08Speaker 1: like two wins. If they had beaten Illinois in the
- 17:10Speaker 1: tournament last year, they might have been a little bit
- 17:13Speaker 1: more on the bubble and then they went in a
- 17:14Speaker 1: nice round in the NI It's not like it's that
- 17:17Speaker 1: far away. It's not like this is a hopeless you know,
- 17:20Speaker 1: this is this is not Chicago State or DePaul or
- 17:24Speaker 1: you know, one of those teams that's just kind of
- 17:25Speaker 1: perpetually hopeless as a team that's kind of around NCAA
- 17:30Speaker 1: tournament and they've just been a little bit short the
- 17:33Speaker 1: last couple of years. And you know, I think you
- 17:37Speaker 1: have to This all kind of goes back to me, Tony,
- 17:39Speaker 1: to sort of understanding the two questions that we've talked about,
- 17:43Speaker 1: what's a reasonable expectation and what are you willing to
- 17:46Speaker 1: give up? Because unless you have you know, like Bill
- 17:49Speaker 1: Davis in the baseball program, Bill Davis was a longtime
- 17:51Speaker 1: donor in the baseball program. If a ton of money.
- 17:54Speaker 1: The baseball stadium's named after him. He was a baseball guy.
- 17:58Speaker 1: I don't know that you have a mega don't who's
- 18:00Speaker 1: like I only care about basketball, And you know, I'm
- 18:03Speaker 1: only I'm not going to give money to football. I'm
- 18:06Speaker 1: just going to give it to basketball. And you know,
- 18:08Speaker 1: it's either I'm going to give it to basketball or
- 18:09Speaker 1: I'm not going to give it to anything, because otherwise
- 18:11Speaker 1: it all goes kind of in the same pot. And
- 18:13Speaker 1: the way the Ohio State Athletic Department works is if
- 18:17Speaker 1: the football team has a couple of bad seasons in
- 18:19Speaker 1: a row and ticket sales fall and merchandise sales fall,
- 18:21Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, that's going to be a
- 18:23Speaker 1: bad time for Ohio State in terms of the balance sheet.
- 18:26Speaker 1: If there's a couple of bad seasons in terms of basketball,
- 18:28Speaker 1: how did football do? Spring football is right around the corner.
- 18:31Speaker 1: That's that's kind of the way that the athletic department
- 18:33Speaker 1: kind of runs just based on the balance sheet. And
- 18:37Speaker 1: you know, I think you have to kind of look
- 18:39Speaker 1: at what is reasonable expectation in terms of basketball historically
- 18:44Speaker 1: and what's a reason, you know, and what are you
- 18:46Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice to exceed that historical norm? And those
- 18:50Speaker 1: those are questions that I think are you know, like
- 18:54Speaker 1: I said, everyone's mad right now, a month from now,
- 18:57Speaker 1: ask yourself those two questions and and see what you think.
- 19:02Speaker 2: Yeah, and even when things are going well, the interest
- 19:06Speaker 2: still wanes. You're still thirteen fourteen thousand people in the arena,
- 19:10Speaker 2: and it's very very rare that there is actually a
- 19:14Speaker 2: sellout even when things are going well at the shot.
- 19:18Speaker 2: So if you're mad now, that's fine. But when when
- 19:23Speaker 2: you're happy, you could and again I say, you could
- 19:27Speaker 2: support the team more Like I'm trying. I don't want
- 19:30Speaker 2: to make the basketball fans angry because there are some
- 19:33Speaker 2: legit Ohio State basketball fans who might be listening to
- 19:36Speaker 2: this or watching this and being like, I'm totally being ignored.
- 19:39Speaker 2: We understand that, but it's it's everybody else that is.
- 19:43Speaker 2: They're they're the ones doing the ignoring. And you know,
- 19:48Speaker 2: if Ohio State fans were as into basketball as they
- 19:51Speaker 2: were into football, the world would be a happier place.
- 19:53Speaker 2: But they're not. And and so this is, you know
- 19:57Speaker 2: what is acceptable. You're looking at it because I don't
- 20:00Speaker 2: think john I don't think Jake Deebler is getting fired
- 20:02Speaker 2: this year. And and frankly the way that that he
- 20:06Speaker 2: was hired, I don't know that. I don't even know
- 20:08Speaker 2: that you know enough about him to fire him. But
- 20:11Speaker 2: did you know enough about him to hire him?
- 20:13Speaker 1: Yeah? He certainly, I would say, deserves another year. And
- 20:17Speaker 1: you can't fire someone after one year. The only, the only,
- 20:20Speaker 1: the only time other than scandal, that I've thought like
- 20:23Speaker 1: that's an acceptable time to fire someone after one year
- 20:25Speaker 1: was Ellis Johnson, who took what was like, I think
- 20:27Speaker 1: a ten and two Southern miss team and went zero
- 20:29Speaker 1: to twelve in his first year. Is like, yeah, that
- 20:31Speaker 1: dude needs to get canned and quick. Otherwise, you got
- 20:35Speaker 1: to give people two years at least two years, and
- 20:38Speaker 1: you know, we'll see two three years for Jake Diebler.
- 20:41Speaker 1: The buyout is very reasonable. This is not something that's
- 20:43Speaker 1: going to you know, you're not chained to him forever,
- 20:46Speaker 1: but he certainly deserves another year to see if you
- 20:49Speaker 1: have some better personnel decisions, better player development decisions, you
- 20:52Speaker 1: don't have some of the off court nonsense that they
- 20:54Speaker 1: had this year. I mean, there's there's a lot of
- 20:56Speaker 1: that stuff that all kind of goes into that.
- 20:58Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm going to say, in terms of bringing
- 21:00Speaker 2: in a coach, let's remember Ohio State and its history.
- 21:03Speaker 2: The only places, the biggest places that it can go
- 21:05Speaker 2: and get somebody's coach from is Boston College. They did
- 21:08Speaker 2: it with Gary Williams, and they did it with Jim O'Brien.
- 21:11Speaker 2: You're not going to go and get the top guy
- 21:13Speaker 2: or the top any of the top ten guys. You're
- 21:15Speaker 2: gonna have to go to a lower level. Like that
- 21:18Speaker 2: amount of being as Xavier for a year when they
- 21:21Speaker 2: got was like the best. That was just so much
- 21:24Speaker 2: happenstance and just really good timing with the whole thad
- 21:26Speaker 2: Moda era. The fact that he was right there and
- 21:28Speaker 2: you're looking for a coach and that was a late
- 21:31Speaker 2: higher as well, But like, you're not just going to
- 21:35Speaker 2: go and get the guy that everybody wants because it's
- 21:37Speaker 2: never happened.
- 21:39Speaker 1: Right and and so you know, again, I think I'm
- 21:42Speaker 1: sure I can already tell the comments, the people who
- 21:45Speaker 1: have posted comments before they finished watching the whole thing,
- 21:47Speaker 1: that we're just making excuses. It's like, I don't know
- 21:50Speaker 1: what to tell you. This is this is sort of
- 21:52Speaker 1: the we're explaining to you the reality of the situation,
- 21:54Speaker 1: and you may not like it, but this is you
- 21:57Speaker 1: want to know why this is happening. This is a
- 21:59Speaker 1: lot of why behind what's happening. You know, we've talked
- 22:02Speaker 1: about a lot of different stuff, but there's a lot
- 22:03Speaker 1: of different factors there. But there's also you know, unless
- 22:06Speaker 1: you're going to just throw a big pot of money
- 22:08Speaker 1: at it, and you know that at Kentucky basketball has
- 22:11Speaker 1: tried that for years and it hasn't It's been a
- 22:13Speaker 1: while since they've been a you know, any confetti adjacent situation.
- 22:18Speaker 1: So you know, even that is not a guarantee. But
- 22:21Speaker 1: you know, there's always there is always next year, we'll
- 22:23Speaker 1: see what the roster looks like. I'm guessing there will
- 22:25Speaker 1: be plenty of turnover there, we'll be talking about that,
- 22:27Speaker 1: but of course we'll also be talking quite a bit
- 22:29Speaker 1: about football because this is Ohio State and that's kind
- 22:32Speaker 1: of what we do at bucke huddle dot com. We
- 22:35Speaker 1: talk about we'll talk about whatever you want to but again,
- 22:37Speaker 1: you guys tend to want to talk about football, so
- 22:39Speaker 1: we end up talking about a whole lot about football
- 22:41Speaker 1: there at buckey huddle dot Com, as well as everywhere
- 22:44Speaker 1: else on these Ohio State internets. So we'll be there
- 22:47Speaker 1: pucke huddle dot com. We'll be at YouTube dot com,
- 22:49Speaker 1: slash bucket Huddle, and great news. Spring football is starting
- 22:52Speaker 1: next week Monday. We'll have our first spring practice. We'll
- 22:55Speaker 1: have a couple more football shows before we get there,
- 22:59Speaker 1: but we'll have plenty of coverage there all spring long
- 23:01Speaker 1: at buckehuddle dot Com. We hope to see you there.
- 23:04Speaker 1: That'll do it for today. Thank you guys all for
- 23:05Speaker 1: joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.