Jake Diebler prioritized winning experience in building first Ohio State staff, roster
COLUMBUS — In front of Jake Diebler sat two rows of reporters. Behind him stood the pinnacle of Ohio State’s trophy display at the end of the Schottenstein Center’s basketball hallway, adjacent to the northwest rotunda.
That setup was fitting.
For one, it was a deviation from the press conference backdrop former head coach Chris Holtmann often had, in a way signifying the start of a new era of Buckeyes men’s basketball.
But also the Final Four hardware and 1960 national championship trophy staring Diebler in the back set the tone for what he’s publicly embraced since March when he earned his full-time promotion to head coach — and that’s the immediate pursuit of championships at Ohio State.
“I appreciate what this program has been,” said Diebler, a Northwest Ohio native who has spent close to a decade with the Buckeyes across two stints. “I got to see it from certainly a very intimate spot when my brother [Jon] was here.
“We’re not going to lower the standard because it’s Year 1. We’ll see what happens this year. Just because we talk about it, doesn’t certainly guarantee that we’re gonna be able to do it. [But] I think we got great pieces. I think we have the personnel to really take a jump this year.”
Diebler added: “The standard’s the standard, and that is competing for championships. That’s the way this program has been. That’s the way this program’s going to be moving forward. We feel a great deal of responsibility to help push that.”
Less than a minute into Diebler’s press conference, he paused and asked Ohio State Sports Information Director Gary Petit to unlock the door to the hallway for program alum William Buford.
Buford started 133 games for Ohio State from 2008-12, averaged double-digit points each of his four seasons with the Buckeyes and reached at least the Sweet 16 three times, a stretch that included the program’s memorable Final Four run in 2012.
Aaron Craft, the point guard of that 2011-12 squad — and another 100-plus-game Ohio State starter — was in the building last week while the Buckeyes hosted high school camps.
Diebler, who received an abundance of support from Buckeyes basketball products like Buford and Craft while serving as interim head coach last season, wants those same former players to be part of his culture, a winning culture.
“Guys are gonna be coming around here this summer,” Diebler said. “Like that’s why — I just want them around because they lived it. They walked these halls when they were cutting down nets. And that’s what we’re striving for. We’re not going to shy away from that.
“… It’ll be hard. We’re going to face adversity. But I think just if we can lean back and say, ‘Hey, this is why we’re doing it,’ that’s going to help us fight through that adversity.”
Reminders of that success are part of the equation, however, the real formula includes winners on the current staff and roster, and that’s what Diebler kept in mind this offseason.
Ohio State has added four players from the transfer portal so far this offseason. All four of them played in the NCAA Tournament last season.
Fifth-year wing Micah Parrish returned to the Sweet 16 with San Diego State, a year removed from taking part in the Aztecs’ national runner-up season. Sophomore Sean Stewart reached the Elite Eight as a first-year player with Duke. Now back with the Buckeyes, fifth-year guard Meechie Johnson Jr. got South Carolina to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016-17. And sophomore Aaron Bradshaw got a taste of The Dance, too, albeit during Kentucky’s surprise first-round loss to Oakland.
Still that experience — whether it was Bradshaw’s four minutes in a Round of 64 defeat last season or Parrish’s nine NCAA Tournament games over the last two years — is invaluable.
It goes hand-in-hand with the two-way, athletic skill sets each of those four transfer additions brings to the table.
“The versatility’s important,” Diebler said of that group. “I think it makes us harder to guard and allows us to be a little more creative defensively. So we were intentional about that.”
Then Diebler asserted: “And the other thing we were intentional about was all four of those guys were in the NCAA Tournament and won at a certain level last year. … So I love that component of it, too.”
Diebler adopted a similar mindset when building his first-ever coaching staff.
Associate head coach Joel Justus is fresh off a Cinderella trip to the Final Four at North Carolina State, where he helped Kevin Keatts’ Wolfpack win five games in five days to claim an ACC Tournament title and a spot in the Field of 68 and then extend their win streak to nine games with four wins and a regional championship in the NCAA Tournament. Plus, Justus was at Kentucky for a good chunk of the 2010s, including for three Elite Eight appearances, one of which turned into a Final Four berth.
Ohio State assistants Jamall Walker and Talor Battle both just took part in the best years of a program’s history. Walker assisted Bryce Drew in leading Grand Canyon to its first three Division I NCAA Tournament appearances and, most recently, its first-ever D-I NCAA Tournament victory. Battle assisted Northwestern’s Chris Collins in forming one of the best backcourts in the Big Ten — which featured Battle’s younger brother Boo Buie — and lent a hand to a Wildcats team that recorded back-to-back 12-win Big Ten seasons and back-to-back years of first-round NCAA Tournament wins, a program first.
Luke Simons spent the last two seasons as Baylor’s Director of Basketball Operations under Scott Drew, who guided the Bears to two more Round of 32 appearances.
And then there’s Dave Dickerson, who is back at Ohio State after serving as the head coach at University of South Carolina Upstate. Dickerson previously worked under legendary Buckeyes head coach Thad Matta for seven years, six of which he had the role of associate head coach. In the process, he was on Matta’s bench for two Elite Eight runs, including, yes, that Final Four appearance in 2012. Diebler notably overlapped with Matta and Dickerson from 2013-16 as a video coordinator for the Buckeyes.
“So if you look at our staff, much like the guys were brought in through the portal, they’re all coming from winning programs,” Diebler said. “I love the guys that we’ve been able to bring in.
“When I was going through the hiring process, there were a couple of things that I was just trying to stay committed to making decisions based upon. Do I think [they’re] helping us move toward winning a championship? And then are these guys committed to helping young men grow? [That’s] something I’m really passionate about. That had to be aligned for this to work.”
When Diebler took over for Holtmann in mid-February last season, he made it clear that the Buckeyes didn’t have the time to go through any wholesale changes. Granted he altered Ohio State’s pace of play and rotation among other things, but his operation was still an extension of the Holtmann era, represented with the same staff and a core of players emblematic of Holtmann’s final chapter.
What Diebler accomplished down the stretch of last season — namely, getting the Buckeyes to the NCAA Tournament bubble — helped him become full-time head coach. But he isn’t focused on bridging the gap between the Holtmann era and his own era, even though there’s a key group of players that has carried over, highlighted by star point guard Bruce Thornton, of course.
“I think it’s less about maybe bridging the gap because this is new, and we’ve completely turned the page,” Diebler said. “I mean, it’s going to be different. Listen, I’ve said this before: I think Holt’s a really good coach — I think he’s going to have a ton of success at DePaul, and I’ve learned a lot from him. But we have to completely turn the page.
“This is an entirely new program. There’s certainly some guys who were part of this program in years past, but even for them, this is a fresh start. This is entirely new.”
New is what Ohio State needs: to make it back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years and to win a championship for the first time since it won the Big Ten Tournament in 2013.
The post Jake Diebler prioritized winning experience in building first Ohio State staff, roster appeared first on On3.
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