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BREAKING: Ohio State Basketball Hires Jake Diebler As Head Coach · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Hello, and welcome to a very special live episode of Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning from
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Monday, March eighteenth. I'm your host Tom Or The Akron game in one
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hundred and sixty six days, the game begets Michigan in two hundred and fifty
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seven days. Why are we doing it live? Well, because we were
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doing a recorded version of the show when news broke that Jake Diebler had officially
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been hired as Ohio State's next head basketball coach. I'm joined today by by
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Kevin Noon and Tony Gerdaman of bucke Huddle dot com. Chris Holtman not here.
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Despite what I m my brain might have briefly thought, let's start Tony
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with the fact that Ohio State hiring Jake Diebler. Now, he seems to
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have hit most of the benchmarks that people had sort of laid out a month
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ago when he took over as the interim coach on February fourteenth, and I
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think at that time everyone kind of went, well, sure, I mean,
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if he goes like I don't know, five and one, then like
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wins the game or two in the Big Ten tournament, like you have to
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at least think about it. And at that time that seemed very fanciful.
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And then he went five and one to close the regularly season and one game
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one game against Iowa in the Big Ten tournaments and lost to the Big Ten
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officials in the quarterfinals against the Stripes and Illinois. But Tony, this,
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to me, I think the timing here boils down more than anything else,
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to something that's going to happen on Monday. Yeah, Monday, the transfer
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portal opens for college basketball, which is tremendously bad timing because it comes one
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day after people find out I'm my inn a tournament? Am I not?
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And then for those not in the tournament you're free to go basically or for
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you know, whatever reason. But yeah, the Transfer Portal has always continues
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to move things up in every sport that it's involved in, and this is
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another one of those instances. Is this the reason why they went with Jake
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Deebler instead of somebody else? You know, I think you vet as much
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as you can, as many people as you feel comfortable with. But I
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also think when you look at the calendar, the calendar impacts everything, and
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this is another one of those pieces of the everything. Yeah, and you
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know, I think there's an argument to be made, Like, what,
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why are you that worried about keeping together a team that didn't make the tournament?
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But you know, the timing is the timing, and I think they
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want to This now gives them Kevin potentially. I mean we don't as of
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right now, we don't know that they're officially not in the NCAA tournament,
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but they're very likely not in the NCAA tournament. They are supposedly kind of
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taking a team vote essentially on whether they're play in the NI t if that
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bid is offered to them. You know, this I think gives them a
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chance to continue sort of building some momentum towards next year and you know,
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maybe making themselves a little bit more, you know, keep the guys who
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are on the roster together, bring in, you know, some other guys
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potentially through the portal. You can add to the portal. You don't just
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have to lose to the portal. This just feels like, you know,
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this is a potentially a little bit of a momentum move as well. Yeah,
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I expect them to accept a bid to the NIT. We'll find out
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That NIT show is on at eight thirty tonight, after all of the nc
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two, a big dance tournament, show ends, and everything else. A
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lot of players after the Illinois game were saying that they would like the season
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to go on if that would be the n I T. This is not
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a CBI team or anything else, but you get this momentum. I think
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there's going I think you're going to see a team that is going to be
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very motivated. They want to do right by the new head coach. I
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mean, they really bought in for this eight game stretch that got them to
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the Big Ten Tournament, a win against Iowa quite certainly what should have been
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a win against Illinois until Stripes intervened. Again, I don't want to be
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that guy, but I'm going to be that guy. I was a pretty
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brutal game to watch. But to an earlier point, the portal is so
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important because it's so weird watching all of these guys entering the portal in the
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list of schools, and no player was associated with Ohio State because there was
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no aptain in charge of the vessel. Well now there is, so Ohio
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State certainly has the opportunity to kind of start moving in that direction. Four
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players walk for Senior Day, they have a signing class of two. You
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have to see what, you know, what the case is with those players.
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I mean, I think that this is going to be viewed as a
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positive mood move, because let's not forget Jake Diebler was known really as the
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main recruiter of the assistance on the Ohio State staff. So you're not going
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to be starting from square one with a lot of these kids that the way
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you may have with somebody else. Well, and what's interesting about Diebler is
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he's been around for a while. He was, as you said, kind
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of their main recruiter. So he's got you know, he has the recruiting
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jobs. The recruiting has been pretty darn good. Where they've sort of fallen
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down over the last couple of years is converting those you know, impressive recruiting
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numbers into on court wins. And you know, Tony, you and I
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had a conversation on the huddleboard presented by Jeff Ruby Seakhouse at Bucky huddle dot
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Com earlier in the weekend. One of the things I said was, you
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know, I don't know whether the turnaround under Jake Diebler says more about Jake
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Diebler or about Chris Holtman, and just in terms of is Jake Diebler getting
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just incredible results out of this talent or was the talent just not performing in
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the way that it should have under Holtman. I think you felt like it
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was maybe a little bit more of a reflection on Holtman. But if you
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if you feel like, okay, Jake Diebler has at least proven himself to
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be a let's just say, at least average or solid in game coach,
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and he has the recruiting chops. There are still a bunch of other portions
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of the head coach responsibilities in modern college basketball, but it feels like Diebler
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has at least maybe at least sort of checked a couple of those boxes before
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he, you know, officially gets that head coaching job. And he's done
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it under pretty adverse circumstances, the firing of a head coach trying to keep
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the players together mentally, emotionally, physically and not heading for the portal or
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thinking about that and just staying locked in and finishing the way they did so,
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I think that is also a test of what Jake Diebler can do as
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a coach. But in terms of the the Holtman thing, like in versus
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Deebler. I definitely feel like Holtman was a factor in this team not playing
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as well and Jake Diebler now getting more out of them, perhaps the mot
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of them. But this also is as a group with some talent. Herle
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Zach Parwa is second in the Big Ten in blocks. He's a defensive presence.
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Bruce Thorton is one of the best players in the in the conference when
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he's at his best, and he's been at his best. You know,
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two career highs, career high nine assists, the for in the second round
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of the Big Ten Tournament, career high tenn asists in the next next game.
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So you're getting a good amount out of those guys, and I think
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everybody would agree if you can keep Bruce Thorton, Roddy Gale, uh,
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the the young guys, Devin Royal, Scott Scotty Middleton, Middleton. I
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was gonna say Scotty Montgomery, but that is a DUCA Duke football player,
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coach Scotty Middleton. Yeah, if you keep like that core together and obviously
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Felix Akpara as well, You've got some sophomores and juniors next year that can
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create a pretty solid base and like you said, they know the system,
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they know the coach, and they'd be more inclined you would think, to
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stay. But there are still pieces you're gonna have to add. Obviously you're
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gonna have to find somebody to replace jameson Battle's offense from the outside and inside
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and and but I think in terms of why Deebler and why not somebody else?
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I feel like the chances are the guy that you're going to hire if
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you don't go with Deebler, is going to be somebody from a mid major
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that has a good season, And you are much more likely to hire Chris
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a Chris Holtman than a Thad Mata. And that is the pool you're choosing
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from. So I think in this since it's I don't want to say the
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devil you know, because that's that's disparaging to Jake Deebler, the Deepler you
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know versus the Deebler you don't. And I think there is some aspect of
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that that you you don't want to get another Chrssualtman, and the chances are
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you're not going to get another Thad Mana. And so you do this and
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if it doesn't work out, guess what the next mid major guy will be
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there in three years, two years, five years, whatever. Yeah,
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and there's a bunch of different directions I kind of want to go with this.
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Let's start with the other guy who was kind of considered a finalist,
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and that's Dusty May who's at Florida Atlantic and he got them to the final
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four last year, which is a remarkable run for a program of Florida Atlantics
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caliber. And then they are having another really solid season this year. The
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question was there are two questions with Dusty May. One is he you know,
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was not the only program going after him potentially, and so you're not
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going to be able to hire him until whenever Florida Lennox run is done,
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and that could be by the next weekend or that could be three weeks from
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now. You also don't know are you going to get him? And you
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also don't know Kevin. The sort of the elephant in the room with him
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is he's an Indiana guy. He did not played Indiana, but he was
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a student manager at Indiana. The Indiana job is inexplicably not open right now.
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I don't know why, but it's going to be open next year almost
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certainly. And so then if you bring in Dusty May, what kind of
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buyout do you have to have in that contract to prevent him from jumping to
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Indiana in twelve months if that job opens up. I mean that that feels
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like, yeah, that would potentially be if you get him, that would
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be a great hire. But how likely are you to be able to keep
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him in the answer to me is, you know, unclear? Ask again
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in twelve months. You know, I was not as concerned about him coming
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to Ohio State and then jumping to Indiana. You don't see a ton of
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that in conference jumping. You do see a little bit of it. But
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Ohio State very well could end up having to face him because remember, Michigan
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is open, and he's been linked to the Michigan job, and with you
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know, a higher profile job in Louisville being open, you don't know what's
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going to happen. You know what's going to happen there, but you know,
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there certainly was a lot of uncertainty about you know, to Tony's point
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of, okay, that's great. You you had a tremendous run one season,
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they're going to be dancing this season, but they also had some bad
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Q three and Q four losses this year, so it was not like it
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was the same the same team a lot of times. You know, it's
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this is different than football. You don't have eighty five guys on scholarship.
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You got thirteen scholarship players, and one player can come in and really change
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the fortunes of the product. Versus football, where one player certainly can have
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an impact, but it's probably not going to change everything unless they play on
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both sides of the ball. And have you know the constitution of a Chris
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gamble or whatever, and I just you know, that's not necessarily the cards.
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But I want to get back to another point, not to hijack the
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show, but a lot of the detractor I know, I know a lot
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of the detractors on the Diebler High are like great somebody who learned at the
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hip of Chris Holtman, a coach that we don't like now, Well,
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he also was witnessed to what didn't work. He was there in those huddles.
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He saw what happened when you shortened the bench, He saw what happened
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when you had radar ears. He saw what happened when you were coaching so
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tight because everybody was against you, well, yes, we have only had
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an eight game sample to see what life after Holt looks like, and with
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that talent, it looked pretty good. So I don't know if I'm necessarily
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somebody who's going to be like, well, he's just holtman junior. I
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don't see that. I didn't see that at the end of games either.
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You know, it was a different team down the stretch of games where they
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looked more call more cool and collective. And I think that's a reflection of
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Dblayer as well. Yeah, and you know, if you have you know,
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you have a very small sample. You're making this higher based on this
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is this is a little bit of a you know, it's a little bit
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of a statement of faith, and it's a little bit of a leap of
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faith, I think for ross Byorke and his first major hires Ohio States Athletic
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Director to take on the interim guy. This is not a complete shot in
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the dark though. As we said earlier, this is the guy who has
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shown the recruiting chops. He's been the lead recruiter, so he's brought in
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the talent that they have there, and then you have seen him in his
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limited sample of opportunities to be the head coach translate that talent into wins,
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and you know, it's not like, yeah, they played some weaker teams
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towards the end of the season, but they also beat Purdue. They also
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beat Iowa, they also beat you know, they were really in a great
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position to beat Illinois before gestures vaguely things happened towards the end of that game.
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You know, it feels like this is certainly, at the very least,
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at the very least, this is a defensible hire for Ohio State where
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you know, there are reasons to think he checks some of the major boxes
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for this hire. Will it work out? I don't know. Will it
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work out? Jake Lee Diebler doesn't know, ross Byeorke doesn't know. No
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one knows. It is a you know, this is this is not a
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sure thing. This is not bringing in Urban Meyer to replace Jim Tressel.
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This is bringing in a guy who maybe sometimes interim coaches turn into fantastic coaches.
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Sometimes interim coaches turn into disastrous coaches. Sometimes interim coaches turn out to
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just kind of be okay, and it's just sort of like you're continuing your
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previous level. This is you know, you can you can say a lot
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of the things about Jake die Bler that you could say about, for example,
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Sharon Moore who had to go do this at Michigan. And yeah,
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Sharon Moore beat Ohio State and Sharon Moore beat Penn State. But Sharon Moore
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had to do it one year or one day a week. He had just
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had to be the game day head coach. And it's like, well,
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he's a sure thing. He beat Ohio State and Penn State. It's like,
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is he do we know he can do all the other stuff? We
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don't know? And I think that still largely true of Jake Diebler as well,
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different you know, different levels of the sport and all of that,
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but certainly a you know, he has been the full time interim head coach
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for a month now. So yeah, it's a little bit, a little
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bit uncertain. I think to me, Tony, this hire and was this
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a good hire or a you know, a defensible good hire or was this
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a boy? This was a reach and they panicked and they had to you
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know, they just got someone just because they had to get someone. Is
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we know the contract is five years, The contract is five years. In
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the release is that five years at two million dollars a year, two and
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a half million dollars a year, where two years from now, if it
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doesn't work out, you can just pull the plug and it's well, you
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know, six million dollars or whatever of buyout and that's fine. Or is
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it five million dollars at like or five years at three and a half million
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dollars or four million dollars or you know something in the Chris Holtan neighborhood where
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boy, if it's not working out two years from now, you got to
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write another enormous check. It feels like the second part of the five years
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and building the blank is a big part of how I view this higher Well,
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given that it's ross Byork making it, I mean he might not think
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four and a half million years that much, So Tom, it might be
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you know, upwards of twenty five million dollars for those five years. I'm
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not expecting that at all, but yeah, I mean, you're the command
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that you have as Deebler as a head coach is going to be much lower
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than the command of somebody else who has been an established head coach. So
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there is you're going to be starting out at a lower rate and everything is
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based off of that, and so there is less risk. Now there is
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still the cost of if you make a bad higher, you're missing out on
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revenue each season that could have been coming from the tournament or whatever. But
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who is a sure thing in terms of the coaches out there? I do
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believe when that Moto was hired, I believed he was a sure thing at
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that point. But like I said, you're more likely to get a Chris
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Holtman than a Thad model because that model, in my opinion, is the
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best coach in Ohio State history, and I think arguably the only elite coach
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in Ohio State history. And you've that's that's really not something that you can
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realistically expect. So you want to have somebody better than Holtman, and but
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you'll be able to pay him, pay him less, and if it doesn't
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work out, it doesn't work out. But I will say, and I
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think Jick Diebler's eight years as an assistant coach, all of that being in
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his last eight years being at Ohio State and Vanderbilt. He's landed nine top
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one hundred guys as the primary recruiter, including five star Darius Garland at Vanderbilt.
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So like, this is a guy who is a proven recruiter, has
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that kind of base, has gotten the results that the athletic directors at Ohio
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State wanted to see. So once it becomes a decision, or once it
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becomes a difficult decision, like gosh, you know we should be we are
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looking elsewhere. But and I'm writing it right now, not right now,
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but I've written something that I'll post after this. Basically, if Jake Diebler
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is the guy that you didn't you would want to see on your new coach
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of staff, then maybe you just want to see Jake Diebler as Ohio State's
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head coach. You know you don't want to lose him, so why don't
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you keep him? And the easiest way to do that is to basically cut
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out the middleman and make him the head coach. Now, as I have
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also said, and I tweeted out this last night, Ohio State's the job
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of the athletic director is to go get the best available candidate who is willing
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to take the job. And a lot of people forget about that last part.
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Yeah, and who is willing to take the job. And you know,
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who is willing to take the job, and like as I said,
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in the course of this, Dusty may willing to take the job and stay.
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I mean Jake Diebler. The upside with Jake Diebler is he comes in
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and this is a twenty year tenure. Whatever I mean this is you know,
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he's he's young enough, he's energetic enough, he's it's the area,
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you know. I think you could see this become a longer term thing.
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Again, I think the spectrum of possible outcomes on this is about as wide
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as it possibly could be. You could be two years from now and just
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go, oh no, this was a terrible mistake, or this could be
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a ten, fifteen, twenty year head coaching tenure and we're just working with
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such a small subset of data to figure out, you know, what is
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this guy actually going to be as the head coach? And Kevin, I
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think that's sort of a common thread in a lot of interim head coaching searches.
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The players always want the interim guy capt on unless you're in a complete
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just Centrallia, Pennsylvania of a disaster, just perpetual fire burning underneath it,
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like, unless you're in that kind of a situation, the players almost always
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want the interim guy to stay, or they want the internal hire. When
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John Cooper was fired, the players all wanted Fred Puggage to be hired as
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the replacement head coach. I don't think that would have gone nearly as well
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as the Jim Trestle thing, but that's what the players wanted. When Bill
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Stewart won that Bowl game at West Virginia, they wanted Bill Stewart to be
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the head coach, and they got it, and it didn't work out.
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When Michigan hired a replacement for Jim Harbaugh, it was Searan Moore and there
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was not even a second thought about it. How is that going to work
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out? To be determined? Much like Jake Debler's to be determined. Ryan
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Day though came in as he was the interim and then he was the head
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coach and that has worked out pretty darn well for Ohio State football. So
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it just it feels like anytime you bring in an interim who doesn't have previous
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head coaching experience, it's always kind of how is this going to go?
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I don't even know where to begin with. What are the common threads of
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the ones that work and the ones that don't? I am thinking of another
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coach that served in an interim role without any head coaching experience, only to
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be elevated to the head coaching role. Ryan Day, he had not had
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any head coaching experience prior to Ohio State, was selected as the interim coach
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for the time that Urban Meyer was sidelined. Uh. And he's had plenty
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of success. I mean, of course there's there is going to be a
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group of fans will be like, you can, you can send Ryan Day
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and Jake Dealer out of town for all I care yet, I mean,
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what has he done for me lately? But we all think when we think
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of interim coaches, we all think of Larry Koker and guys like that.
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I mean, not much more of a football guy. So on my mind
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is always going to go there. Uh we we that is the the ilk
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that we think of with with the interim coach. And we don't necessarily think
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of the ones that are are successful, because you know, the success rate
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probably is not that high, but you don't need to be. We're not
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looking at what the trend is. We're not looking at what the percentages are.
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If if you're one of one, if if yours hits, that's all
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that matters. You're not concerned about what happens for anybody else. So,
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yes, you do keep the roster together. I think you do keep recruiting
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together. I think that there's certainly, you know, the level of familiarity
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and everything else. Now, how many how many more butts and seats does
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that put for uh, you know, for for the next year's season.
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Well, they've already announced they're bringing ticket prices down, so hopefully it's a
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little bit more. Io State never had a problem at the beginning of seasons.
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Is once you get around to January that everything kind of went to hell
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in a hand basket. But uh, but yeah, they're just gonna be
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like like, quote unquote, your boy jay On in the chat is let
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us know in very you know, certain terms that he is not a fan
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of this higher and there and I've talked to a lot of people who aren't
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necessarily going to be a fan of the higher and we're gonna have We're gonna
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have ourselves a long time because whatever happens in the NIT doesn't matter that nobody's
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going to recognize that information hit Ohio State could win the NIT. That doesn't
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matter to the detractors. Ohio State can losing the first round of the n
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IT. I don't think that's going to really hurt the supporters because they're going
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to be like, well, you know, that's they're already drawing dead at
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that point. But you know, I'm very interested. I'm one of the
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few people who's not going to say this is a good hire or bad hire
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because I'm willing to wait for the results. Now, that makes me an
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outlier in all of this, as I pat my own back on that,
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I don't I don't know, I don't know. I will say Ohio State
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has not hired a men's basketball coach that they didn't eventually fire since nineteen eighty
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six. So it's been almost forty years since they hired a coach that they
22:33
didn't want to fire at some point. So like, this is a this
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is a thing that generally doesn't work out, And even for the greatest of
22:40
all time at Ohio State that Mada, he eventually had to get fired.
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So if if the best option, the best available outcome that could happen is
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you're here for like twelve years or whatever, and then you get fired for
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a for a failure to execute, and then I guess that's that's a pretty
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good hire. I don't know if it's going to be that. I don't
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think. In fact, Tom, I'm willing to bet nobody knows, despite
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the fact that they'll tell you they do. That's exactly it. I think.
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As I said, I think there's an incredibly broad spectrum of possible outcomes
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on this higher, where this again, two years from now, you could
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look at this and go, well, you know they tried. Turns out
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the last eight games of twenty twenty four were a fluke and he just was
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not quite ready. That is absolutely a possible scenario, which is why I
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think, you know, what does the contract look like is a very big
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part of what I think about this higher, because it is it's a maybe.
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It is absolutely maybe. And anyone who tells you this is absolutely gonna
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be disaster, absolutely going to be a home run higher, I think is
23:41
hoping or hating or you know, something in between. That's why you give
23:45
yourself an out in a couple of years. And you know, if two
23:48
years from now he's won the Big ten and you know they've made an Elite
23:52
eight or something like that, then great, Yeah, by all means,
23:55
extend him for another five years and then give him his four million dollars a
23:57
year or whatever it is. I just I think that if they're giving you
24:02
a ton of money up front that's all guaranteed, that I think would be
24:04
a little bit of a red flag to me. My guess would be that's
24:07
not what it's going to be. But we will, we will see when
24:11
those numbers actually come out. One interesting part of this hire is the first
24:14
time in thirty five years that Ohio State has hired a head coach from the
24:18
state of Ohio. That is always sort of a big, a big talking
24:22
point around the football program. Kevin, I don't know, is that as
24:25
big a thing this is, of course, since Randy Ayres was hired thirty
24:29
five years ago. Is that as big a deal in basketball as it is
24:33
in football? Where you look at the you know, the great football coaches
24:34
in Ohio Ohio State history, and it's you know, Woody Hayes, you
24:37
know from Ohio, and Earl Bruce from Ohio, and Jim Tressel from Ohio
24:41
and Urban Meyer from Ohio, and you know the guys who have lost football
24:47
games to Michigan all John Cooper, not from not from Ohio, and Ryan
24:51
day oh not from Ohio and you know, so that that becomes a real
24:53
talking point around the football program. Is that as big a deal in basketball
24:57
or with you know, the basketballing a little a bit of different sport.
25:00
Is that not as big a deal? I personally don't think it's as big
25:03
of a deal. But I'm sure there are gonna be some Ohio State fans
25:07
are gonna be like, you're you're full of it. You don't know what
25:08
you're talking about. I mean, they need to hire Ohio coaches always,
25:14
You're not necessarily I mean even even in the best at times. What is
25:18
you know, what is the makeup of your roster going to be from in
25:21
state? I mean, I think that you have to be able to recruit
25:25
so much around the country. You have much more of a case of guys
25:29
going to like IMG type of schools and stuff like that, you know,
25:33
Monverdy and and things like that, that you're even kids that are from Ohio
25:40
end up being in Florida or New Hampshire or Texas or wherever to go to
25:45
these schools. So you know, having having the coach that can walk into
25:52
pick Central or walk into Ottawa Land or for walk into wherever. I don't
25:56
think is as much of an issue, but I think there's going to be.
26:00
I think that one's going to be up for debate. But I when
26:04
you mentioned that comment, I had to kind of think back on it.
26:07
I was like, I guess it has been that long. That's that's how
26:10
little that stat means to me. Well, and also Randiers was an assistant
26:15
coach. He was Gary williams assistant when Williams left for Maryland and they kept
26:22
Randiers and it was fantastic higher for the first two years, and then something
26:25
happens. It turns out when you lose Jimmy Jackson and he's no longer there,
26:30
then it becomes a little bit more difficult to win. But he was
26:34
He was one of the national coaches of the year. I think he won
26:37
one of those awards in his first or second year. And Ohio State was
26:41
outstanding and his first couple of years there. Then it took a step,
26:45
a big step back, and eventually fell down some flight of stairs and cracked
26:48
its head on the curb and shot some things, and you know, and
26:55
had some arrests. It was a bad time, bad time. But you
26:59
know, I don't I don't expect this to be like that. Yeah,
27:03
all you have to do is be better than Randy Aers. And you may
27:06
not know this, guys, but Randy Air is still coaching in the NBA,
27:08
where he's been since just about he got fired at like ninety seven ninety
27:12
eight. He's been there pretty much NonStop through there. But with Deebler,
27:21
I saw somebody else mention it in the chat. I think it was John
27:23
talking about how we saw Jake Diebler turn Ohio State around and it took him
27:30
all of eight games, took them all of one game, honestly, the
27:33
first game against Purdue. Now, there's always this type of energy. It's
27:37
not the first time you've seen a interim coach win a big game in his
27:41
first time out. There's just different kinds of energy involved there. But he
27:45
turned Ohio State around, and I think he deserves some credit for that.
27:51
But I don't know if this is a good hire. I think I'm not
27:56
going to say it's a bad hire because what I've seen has been really,
27:59
really good. The product on the court. There is no such thing as
28:03
a sure thing, and this is Ohio State basketball, where one hundred and
28:07
twenty five years they've had one national championship, and it took five NBA players
28:11
on that nineteen sixty team to make that happen, including two Hall of Famers.
28:15
So you got to kind of bring your sits down a little bit.
28:18
Not that should you bring them down to an assistant coach, like I said
28:25
earlier on Twitter yesterday, or so, if Ohio State football can hire an
28:29
assistant with no coaching experience the head coaching experience, you better believe Ohio State
28:33
basketball can do. So. You know, it's funny you're talking about that
28:37
Purdue game, and I remember after the game, I'm on the court.
28:41
I took just a video of people jumping around and dancing and storming the court
28:45
and it was everyone's having a great time. And I tweeted out the video
28:47
with welcome to the Jake Diebler era. And I you know, tweeted that
28:49
out at the time, thinking like, well, he's the interim coach and
28:52
you know this this era will last six games or whatever it is. And
28:56
you know, people were very immediately like no, don't overreact to this.
28:59
It was like, that's not what I meant. I didn't mean. I
29:00
just meant like, hey, he's the head coach now and hey, look,
29:03
they want a game. How about that? Isn't that crazy? And
29:06
you know so now it turns out that was the fact, in fact,
29:08
the start of the Jake Diebler era at Ohio State. Real quickly want to
29:11
share my single favorite comment from any YouTube video that we have ever posted on
29:17
any live show in the history of the channel from your war day quote,
29:21
we are officially a football school, first time ever, Ohio State a football
29:27
school. Exclusive must credit buck Eye Tomorrow Morning Podcast. All Right, so,
29:36
last thing I wanted to talk about is this this team might might be
29:41
headed for a better season next year because something that's probably not going to happen
29:44
that has I think gotten them in the past, and that is losing a
29:48
first round draft pick who they weren't necessarily expecting to lose. You know,
29:51
when they've brought in got some guys in the past, it's like, Okay,
29:53
this guy's going to be a one and done. You know they're going
29:56
to be a one and done. You're planning for them to be one and
29:57
done. That's fine. They've had guys like Malachi Branham or Bryce Sensible come
30:03
in where you're not thinking, Okay, this guy's going to be one and
30:04
done, but then it sort of surprises you and it kind of screws with
30:08
your roster construction a little bit. And also those are guys that were on
30:11
teams that really didn't get a whole heck of a lot out of those guys
30:15
in terms of you know, hey they made this week sixteen, Hey they
30:18
made the Elite eight, it was, they won the Big Ten Tournament,
30:19
whatever. It was just kind of they had these guys who were sort of
30:22
these one off, one off, you know, shooting star kind of players,
30:26
and then boom, they're off to the NBA, and you don't have
30:30
a whole heck of a lot to show for it. This is a team
30:32
where you have they have guys who they're going to lose. As you said,
30:34
they had four guys on celebrate Senior Day, but you don't necessarily have
30:40
the Bryce sensible Miley Kai Branham like, oh, this guy was a freshman
30:45
and Puffy's off to that he's gonna be off to the NBA and they're gonna
30:47
have this really shocking hole to fill. That might mean they're going to be
30:51
in you know, we'll see what the transfer portal brings in terms of the
30:55
tide going out and the tide going in. But it feels tony like they
30:57
that might set them up for a better first season for Jake Diebler. Yeah,
31:04
you've got the experience. If you've got junior back court, talented rising
31:11
sophomores in Scottie Middleton and Devin Royal, and a post player like Felix lac
31:17
Part Defensively, that's a pretty good group of five. You've got depth that
31:22
you're going to be building, and you're bringing in Junie Mobley, a talented
31:25
guard as well. And the portal is always going to be interesting, and
31:29
that's something that Ohio State I think overrelied on with Holban. But the guys
31:33
that they went and got into the portal got from the portal just kind of
31:37
odd at times. So I think I wonder if Deebler's ability to recruit high
31:42
school players will also allow him to be a talented recruiter of the transfer portal,
31:49
because I think that's always going to be something that you utilize, especially
31:52
in basketball, when a couple of guys can just change your entire outlook on
31:59
its tea and you can overcome some of those freshman losses. But yeah,
32:02
it's almost probably a good thing they didn't make the tournament time. That way,
32:05
they don't have some like Scotty Middleton going crazy uh and just ended up,
32:09
you know, leaving like Mike Connolly back in two thousand and seven,
32:13
Ohigh State goes the National Championship game and to throw in with the Greg Odin
32:16
sweepstakes is like, yeah, I'm out of here too, and he's the
32:19
fourth throw for all picks. So sometimes Tom, it's good not to go
32:22
to the NCAA tournament. I want to jump in real quick because Tony talks
32:25
about recruiting, being a good high school recruiter, and what does that mean
32:30
for the portal? Well, guess what all these portal guys did at one
32:32
point. They went to high school, so a lot of them were probably
32:37
viewed and recruited by Deebler at one point. I mean, that doesn't always
32:39
mean that you're going to go back to the same players that you necessarily way
32:45
down the road with. I mean they're gonna you're the portal opens up all
32:47
sorts of possibilities. But you know, I again, to bring it back
32:52
to football, I ran into a coach at school was a group of five
32:55
school at that point, and they were. They were at a high school
32:59
that a lot of talent, and I was just talking with him and he's
33:01
like, yeah, and I'm going to talk to the kids that I know
33:02
that I probably don't have a shot at now, but I might have a
33:06
shot at him in two years. So you know, there's something to that.
33:10
There is definitely somebody of that. That's why we've heard in terms of
33:13
football, in terms of basketball, it is kind of a brave new world
33:15
in the recruiting realm. A couple interesting points in the chat Tony made one,
33:21
you know, hiring them or hiring the assistant coach and do you want
33:23
to bring in an assistant coach Tony? Who was it that Michigan State brought
33:29
in when jud Heathcote was hired God by the name of tom Izzo. So
33:36
sometimes it works out. So if ire State can get to tom Izzo type
33:39
of production, I think that would be okay. But yeah, and many,
33:45
many, many other programs have hired established head coaches and it never works
33:50
out, and so you just don't know. I saw Dan Monson's name on
33:54
Twitter earlier today. It's like that is a name from the past that in
34:00
another time he was at Gonzaga and he left to become the head coach at
34:04
Minnesota because that was the better job and it didn't last long for him.
34:07
And imagine if he would have stayed what would have happened there. So,
34:13
yeah, you just don't know because it's a new guy coming into a new
34:15
situation. This at least is somewhat of an old young guy coming into an
34:20
old situation with Ohio State and Jake Diebler and you kind of have a little
34:23
bit of an idea what it's going to be. But he's never run an
34:27
off season, he's never done the development aspect of it like that. He's
34:30
been an assistant coach, and nobody should never have to learn on the job
34:36
at Ohio State, except sometimes that happens, and Ryan Day has done it,
34:39
Randiers did it, and you know, all with differing levels with the
34:45
results. But again, it's kind of like when people talk about mock drafts
34:52
and how some of these guys are idiots. Remember GM's get half their picks
34:55
wrong, and they have all of the possible information you could ever want.
35:00
Directors have all of the information you could want. Did they get the Chris
35:02
Holtman higher right, Probably not. Did they get the Juwan Howard Howard Higher
35:07
right, probably not so for any of us to say here and go like,
35:10
oh, this is this is or this is definitely it. We don't
35:15
know. I don't Yeah, I don't want to speak for you guys.
35:17
Yeah, well you're not. You can you can speak for me on that
35:21
one. And that's I am perfectly willing to also throw up my hands and
35:23
go, oh, we'll see. You know, did they get that even
35:27
even after Chris Holtman had been at Ohio State for a couple of years,
35:29
did they get the Chris Holtman extension? Right? Nope, that's I mean
35:32
that that is that was a bad, bad move and it didn't work out,
35:37
and that's just the reality of the situation. And it cost them a
35:38
bunch of money. But you know, it's Ohio State. You write a
35:40
check and you move on mons. I mean, that's what happened. So
35:45
that's how it works. I mean, you sit there and you have a
35:46
little success. He gets them to the tournament. The first couple of years,
35:52
they're competitive in the round of thirty two games, but they can't get
35:54
to the second weekend. But you know, people were people were mad that
35:59
Notre Dame was snooping around and and every I mean, I can't tell you
36:02
how many times I wrote about the fact that Chris Holtman, you know,
36:06
his family, his family's right there near Lexington, Kentucky, And would Kentucky
36:09
be the only job that he would leave Ohio State for. I mean,
36:14
so we all have the gift of hindsight of the Chris Holtman era to say
36:21
that maybe it was not the best situation, but there was a moment in
36:24
time and I'm not talking in necessarily the honeymoon period of where you know,
36:30
everybody wanted you, you keep your damn hands off of our coach. So
36:34
ye don't know well, and notre Dame is an interesting part, an interesting
36:38
conversation in this in a different context, which is, Okay, you have
36:43
an Ohio State coach who came in in a program that was really struggling and
36:46
came in and turned things around, and they won a bunch of games,
36:50
and you know, well, they lost a really close game to a you
36:52
know, really high profile program, and uh, you know, but boy
36:57
really turned the program around, and yet you have to you have to keep
37:00
that guy around. That was the Charlie Weiss story too, and you know
37:02
sometimes, you know, sometimes Charlie Weiss turns into you know, a you
37:07
know, a great start can turn into a great long term hire, and
37:10
sometimes it turns into boy, you're writing a lot of checks for a lot
37:13
of years for a guy that lost a whole lot of football games for you.
37:15
So again, this kind of goes back to Tony's point about the uncertainty
37:19
around all of this stuff and will he you know, will they turn into
37:22
a perpetual Sweet sixteen Elite eight team or may even better, maybe will they
37:29
will this not work out at all and they'll be back in the market in
37:30
two years. Maybe, But we'll all find out together. And the the
37:35
scress place to do that is at pukey huddle dot com, where Tony,
37:37
Kevin and I cover the team. We're can be covering a lot of football
37:40
this week as well. Bluckey's back to the practice field this week for the
37:45
second week of spring ball. A lot of exciting stuff to talk about there,
37:49
a lot of exciting stuff to talk around the basketball team as well.
37:52
It's gonna be maybe the most interesting n it appearance that the buck Eyes have
37:55
ever had. Generally those don't draw a lot of eyeballs, but might be
38:00
a little more intrigue this year around this where this is and then the transfer
38:05
portal opening on Monday, and what is that going to mean for the Buckeyes.
38:07
We'll be following it all at bucke huddle dot com and of course at
38:09
YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. That's the place to the place to find
38:15
us. When news breaks, we are almost inevitably sitting in front of a
38:17
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38:21
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38:24
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38:27
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38:54
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