Oller: Jake Diebler a gutsy pick as OSU men's basketball coach, but how smart is it?
Sometimes gutsy beats smart. We’re about to find out if this is one of those times.
Buckeyes fans, Jake Diebler is your new Ohio State men’s basketball coach, elevated from interim to full time after going 6-2 following the firing of Chris Holtmann on Feb. 14.
Diebler was a longshot to get the job even two weeks ago, but he beat the odds by masterfully revitalizing the Buckeyes, who insist he has that special something to be hugely successful.
“Whatever “it” is, he has that,” fifth-year forward Jamison Battle said of Diebler.
New Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork presumably picked up on Diebler’s “it” factor over the past month, and went with his gut in promoting the 37-year-old instead of going outside the program. We’ll know more when Bjork and Diebler slap backs at the pending news conference, but it sure feels like the AD deep-sixed conventional wisdom in favor of acting on a hunch, a heart-before-head type of decision.
Dusty May was the heady choice. The Florida Atlantic coach led the Owls to the Final Four last season and is 126-68 (.649) in six seasons. Maybe May was more interested in the vacancy at Louisville, where basketball is king and the Cardinals have experienced more high-end success than the Buckeyes over the past 50 years. We shall see.
Chris Jent made sense, too. The former Ohio State player and assistant coach under Thad Matta has coached in both college and the NBA. Plus he’s a friend of LeBron, whose youngest son, Bryce, is said to be better than his brother Bronny. Papa LeBron pouring NIL money into the program is an enticing thought for fans.
Even Xavier coach Sean Miller would have been a savvy, if somewhat shady hire, given his ties to the Arizona recruiting scandal. (But he was never convicted.)
My columnist colleague, Michael Arace, suggested Bjork aim high by pursuing Baylor coach Scott Drew, who is as sure a thing as you will find. “Go big or go home” is a bold strategy Bjork could have used to make an emphatic statement: “We are not mostly a football school.” But that would have meant lying, which is no way to begin your tenure. Save the half-truths for later.
Instead, Bjork took the higher-risk route, placing instinct over pragmatism. Not to suggest hiring Diebler is a dumb move, but certainly he was not the safest bet. It tells us something about how Bjork operates. Hiring Diebler because he righted a sinking ship comes off as in-the-moment thinking. Not necessarily knee-jerk, but going all-in based on a small sample size shows the AD is willing to gamble.
As a former interim coach at a Power Five school expressed it to me, “(Diebler) has never been a head coach, never gone from September all the way through. He might have some fanfare now, but he could be on the hot seat quickly. Let this guy go somewhere and learn how to coach.”
The hot seat comment resonates. My sense is Diebler is a “slight majority” fan favorite, with about 55% of Buckeye Nation approving and 45% rolling their eyes. Maybe he wins big next season and convinces the 45% they were wrong. But if the Buckeyes struggle, Diebler will have a large portion of OSU fans quickly screaming “I told you so,” their impatience built on their belief he was the wrong choice.
I would not describe Diebler’s hire as polarizing, but it stirs strong opinions. One group happily says, “Pinch me, Jake deserved this opportunity!” The other group shakes its head, wondering what Bjork was thinking. This is Ohio State, not Ohio (no offense, Bobcats fans). What the Buckeyes need is a proven program builder. Or at least someone who has been a head coach before. Diebler is neither.
Me? I’m simultaneously pinching and wondering.
Pinching. Diebler is a great story. A sincere, down-to-earth native Ohioan from a basketball family who rode to the rescue by leading a moribund outfit to big wins – against No. 2 Purdue and at Michigan State, where OSU had not won since 2012 – and onto the bubble of the NCAA Tournament. That the bubble burst with Friday’s 74-71 loss to Illinois in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals does not reflect so much on Diebler’s coaching as on recruiting. The Buckeyes need a beefier big man who can throw his weight around against conference foes.
Wondering. No big man to play the heavy? Well, Diebler was responsible for recruiting and signing the entire 2022 and 2023 classes. Any hole in the roster is on him. Also, he was in charge of the offense the past two years, an offense that too often resembled a bumper car amusement park ride. One minute chaotic, the next stuck going nowhere. Maybe that was Holtmann maintaining tight control, unwilling to turn the offensive show over to his assistant, but if not …?
It is promising for OSU’s future that the offense suddenly blossomed under Diebler’s eight-game audition. The defense improved, too. Also promising: Diebler is the rare interim coach to post a winning record during his time as a fill-in. Since 2000, only a handful of the nearly two dozen interim coaches who took over midseason finished with winning records. One of them, Wisconsin’s Greg Gard, had the interim tag removed after the 2015 season. How did that work out? The Badgers are 171-80 (.681) since Gard was named head coach, with four NCAA Tournament appearances, and fifth likely after the Badgers play Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament final.
Where I finally land is on giving Diebs a chance. Hand him that five-year contract and see what he can do. If it doesn’t work out, on to the next. Give Bjork some credit, too, for having the intestinal fortitude, and some semblance of humility, to resist making the splashy pick and instead to hire the right “fit” guy already on staff. He’s done it before, when as athletic director at Western Kentucky in 2012 he replaced Ken McDonald (5-11) with Ray Harper, who finished the season 11-8.
Bjork removed Harper’s interim tag, and the Hilltoppers won 78 games and lost 56 (.582) over the next four seasons before Harper resigned in 2016 over the permanent suspension of three of his players.
Diebler needs to do better than that if his hire is to be considered successful. Bjork’s risk needs to end in a bigger reward. Stay tuned.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State basketball hiring Jake Diebler to run Buckeyes program
