It didn’t take long for Ohio State to decide that Jake Diebler should be its new head coach.
Just about 24 hours after Ohio State’s Big Ten Tournament run ended with a loss to Illinois – effectively eliminating the Buckeyes from the NCAA Tournament in the process – the news broke Saturday night that OSU has decided to promote Diebler and is negotiating a contract with the current interim coach to take over the job permanently.
Was hiring Diebler over the likes of Dusty May and Sean Miller the right decision? That’s a tough question to answer right away, though a majority of Eleven Warriors readers think so.
Diebler has already shown his chops as an in-game coach, leading the Buckeyes to six wins in his eight games as interim coach after taking over a program that had gone 2-9 in its final 11 games under Chris Holtmann. Promoting Diebler will likely allow Ohio State to retain most of its current players, and it’s far from unprecedented for Ohio State to promote from within, as it did the same in the football program by promoting Ryan Day to replace Urban Meyer.
That said, Diebler isn’t inheriting a program that’s already at the top of the sport. With the Buckeyes set to miss their second straight NCAA Tournament, Diebler now must prove he can build the Ohio State men’s basketball program back into a consistent contender, and whether he can do that over the next 3-5 years is how Ross Bjork’s decision to promote Diebler over making an external hire will ultimately be judged.
We share our initial thoughts on Ohio State’s expected hiring of Diebler in a fresh episode of Press Coverage, which you can watch in the video at the top of the page.
