Ohio State came up short in its bid to make a deep-enough run in the Big Ten Tournament to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but that shouldn’t overshadow what Jake Diebler accomplished in his month as interim coach.
The NCAA Tournament wasn’t a thought on anyone’s mind outside the program when Diebler took over for Chris Holtmann on Feb. 14, but Diebler led the Buckeyes back into the conversation as they won five of their final six games of the regular season as well as a Big Ten Tournament game against Iowa before dropping a 77-74 heartbreaker against Illinois on Friday.
The refs drew far more criticism than Diebler did from Ohio State fans for the Buckeyes’ close loss to the 13th-ranked Illini, and many Buckeye fans still want Diebler to get Ohio State’s head coaching job. Now, Ross Bjork has a decision to make that appears to be coming down to either removing the interim tag from Diebler or offering the job to Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May.
While we believe May is the frontrunner to get the job, we won’t be shocked if Ohio State ends up giving the job to Diebler, who should be a head coach somewhere next season based on his work over the past month. But Bjork must weigh whether Diebler’s galvanizing efforts to lead the Buckeyes to a strong finish – which could still include a NIT bid that we believe Ohio State should accept – outweighs the proven ability to lead a program year-round that May would bring.
On our Big Ten Tournament recap episode of Press Coverage, we talk about why Diebler’s work over the past month was so impressive, the factors that could determine who Ohio State hires and how the Buckeyes could benefit from playing in the NIT.
You can watch the episode in the video at the top of the page.
