In season with regrets, Ohio State enters NIT with hopes of winning a championship
The emotions were all over the place for Ohio State’s players on Sunday. Start with some regret and envy, the feelings of watching Illinois cut down the nets inside Minneapolis’ Target Center to celebrate a Big Ten Tournament title. Friday evening, the Buckeyes led those Fighting Illini by 10 points at the midpoint of the second half but ultimately took a three-point loss to send them into a tumultuous weekend.
Sunday, Ohio State announced that interim coach Jake Diebler had been hired as the full-time coach, bringing clarity. The NCAA Tournament committee did not select the Buckeyes to participate in March Madness. Mixed in there somewhere was a team vote on whether or not to extend the season and accept a bid to play in the NIT.
The majority prevailed. Ohio State dealt with the disappointment of its last tournament, was given a No. 2 seed and prepared for a Tuesday night first-round game against Cornell. The Big Red led a game with 17 lead changes and six ties for 20:48, back-cutting Ohio State’s defense throughout and hitting timely shots, but the Buckeyes outscored them 9-2 in the final minute of an 88-83 thriller.
Disappointment. Hope. Bitterness. Togetherness. All of it crystallized in a wild stretch of days for the Buckeyes.
“It was obviously a very exciting time but there was a lot of unknown too, sitting there on Sunday watching the Big Ten championship feeling like we should’ve been there,” fifth-year forward Jamison Battle, who hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 43 seconds left, said. “In the end, it’s the past. We had to focus on what we have to do and Sunday we came together as a team and said we want to compete and that’s the type of guys we have on this roster.
“We made that decision ultimately to come out and play in the NIT, which we feel like was the right decision, and it showed tonight.”
Not every high-major team feels that way. Indiana, St. John’s, Memphis, Oklahoma and others are known to have turned down opportunities to participate in the event. An Ohio State roster with three players who have totaled 159 minutes in nine NCAA Tournament games, none of them together, looked at the chance to continue its season and nodded in agreement.
Sophomore guard Roddy Gayle Jr., who tied Battle for the team high with 17 points, said he tried to look at it from the point of view of Battle and Dale Bonner, the team’s other fifth-year senior player who will exhaust his eligibility whenever the final whistle is blown this season.
“We could’ve been Big Ten champs,” Gayle said. “I know they wanted to play, and I’m not ready for this group to be over with, this family to be over with. I felt like it was a no-brainer for me to be able to play in the NIT and battle with my guys one last time.”
Bonner played in four NCAA Tournament games at Baylor, scoring 20 points with nine assists and no turnovers while logging 105 minutes and going 2-2. Fourth-year senior Zed Key is 1-2 in the NCAA Tournament with the Buckeyes, recording 10 points and 18 rebounds in 35 minutes. Sophomore Evan Mahaffey played two games for Penn State last year, going 1-1 with four points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes.
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Next year, the Buckeyes could potentially return everyone from a team that’s now 21-13 save for Battle and Bonner.
“For a lot of the guys on this team it’s their first postseason experience,” Diebler said. “We had big aspirations, especially late in the season of making the NCAA Tournament, but our guys talked and felt like they wanted to pursue this postseason. Our guys played hard.”
They also played their first game with Diebler installed as the permanent boss. Monday, on this same court, the coach was formally introduced with a public press conference attended by his extended family and nearly two dozen Ohio State men’s basketball alumni. He received loud applause when his name was announced during the customary pregame festivities and then had to sweat out the entirety of a three-point win in a win-or-go-home setting.
“He’s a leader of men,” Battle said of Diebler. “He’s all about relationships. Whatever coach has, it’s an ‘it’ factor and he’s got it. You can see how we’ve rallied around with how we’ve played. It’s a testament to what he’s done.”
Ohio State Buckeyes: Join the Ohio State Sports Insider text group with Bill Rabinowitz, Joey Kaufman Adam Jardy
The win gives Ohio State a Saturday home game against No. 3 seed Virginia Tech, which beat Richmond on Tuesday night to improve to 19-14. It is the second of potentially five games the Buckeyes could play in the tournament, which culminates April 4 at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse.
It’s not the March Madness the Buckeyes began the season aiming to play in, but Battle said they’re trying to make as much of their own as they can with the opportunities they have left.
“There’s still lots of work to be done,” he said. “We feel like we can end on top, but there’s two other tournaments other than the NCAA Tournament. There’s four teams who can end with wins at the end of the season, so we want to be one of those teams. It’s going to take all of the guys here to finish the season out strong.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Roddy Gayle, Ohio State basketball not ready for season to end
