Ohio State men’s basketball head coach Jake Diebler during it’s Feb 12. game against Michigan. Credit: Liam Ahern | Sports Photo Editor
Monday night will mark what all 361 Division I men’s basketball teams work toward all season: the NCAA Tournament national championship game.
But while the UConn Huskies and Michigan Wolverines face off for a title in Indianapolis, the night will also be significant for teams like Ohio State, as it comes on the eve of the transfer portal opening.
On Tuesday, players who have announced their intentions to transfer will officially be allowed to do so when the portal opens. It will remain open through April 21.
For the Buckeyes, who are looking to replace three starters, including all-time leading scorer Bruce Thornton, the cycle presents a crucial opportunity to rebuild a roster that has undergone significant turnover this offseason.
Ohio State currently has four returning scholarship players still on the roster – Amare Bynum, Ivan Njegovan, Josh Ojianwuna and Mathieu Gruijic – and will look to replace Thornton, Christoph Tilly, Brandon Noel and Puff Johnson, who graduated, along with Gabe Cupps, Taison Chatman, Devin Royal and Colin White, who have entered the transfer portal.
The Buckeyes have retained Bynum and could also return their second-leading scorer, John Mobley Jr., who is testing the NBA draft process but will not enter the portal. That kind of retention is what head coach Jake Diebler said is the program’s top priority entering the offseason.
“We have to start with retention,” Diebler said. “That’s a major focus for us this time of year, and then we build it out.”
NIL – and how much financial backing the program has – was a question last year, notably when CBS announcer Gus Johnson said during a Feb. 14 broadcast of Ohio State’s game against Virginia that the difference between the two teams was that “UVA paid for their players,” while the Buckeyes had “given all their money to Ryan Day.”
However, on Diebler’s March 23 radio show on 97.1 The Fan, the third-year coach sounded optimistic about the program’s support heading into the offseason.
“There’s a lot of good happening behind the scenes to set us up to be successful from a roster construction standpoint,” Diebler said. “I feel like we are in a much better place today than we were at this time last year.”
Here are three things to watch as the portal opens Tuesday:
Find Bruce Thornton’s replacement
Replacing a program’s 128-year all-time leading scorer is no small task.
For four seasons, Thornton provided stability to a program that often lacked it. Now he is gone, and Ohio State must find a new lead guard.
That answer will have to come from the portal.
With Cupps and Chatman both entering, the Buckeyes do not have a true point guard on the roster. That makes adding an experienced ball handler a priority.
If Mobley returns, Ohio State regains a proven scorer after he averaged 15.7 points per game while shooting 41.1% from 3-point range in 2025-26. But he is not a primary facilitator, meaning the Buckeyes still need someone to run the offense.
The priority, then, becomes finding a guard who can do more than try to replace Thornton’s team-high 20 points per game. Ohio State needs someone who can control tempo, limit turnovers and deliver in late-game situations, the same way Thornton did throughout his career.
While it will be difficult to replicate that kind of production, the good news for Ohio State is there is no shortage of point guard talent in the portal.
As of Monday, there are 25 four-star point guards already in the portal, the most of any position, according to 247Sports.
Bolster the frontcourt
For the third straight season, Diebler and the Buckeyes will likely be looking for frontcourt talent in the transfer portal.
With Tilly graduating, Ohio State is left with Njegovan – who averaged 2.6 points per game in 2025-26 – and Ojianwuna, a 2025 Baylor transfer who missed the entire season while recovering from a torn ACL, as its only returning big men.
And for a team that ranked in the bottom half of the Big Ten in rebounding last season, more production in the frontcourt is a necessity.
While Tilly was productive for the Buckeyes, averaging 11 points per game, he was not a physical center, something Ohio State has been lacking since losing Felix Okpara to the portal in 2023.
If the Buckeyes want to compete in the Big Ten, the tallest conference in the nation this past season, they must find a true rebounder and shot blocker down low.
Quality over quantity
Diebler’s first two portal classes as head coach have not been good.
Since taking over, Ohio State has brought in nine transfers – Aaron Bradshaw, Ques Glover, Meechie Johnson Jr., Micah Parrish, Sean Stewart, Cupps, Noel, Ojianwuna and Tilly.
The results are hard to ignore.
Four – Bradshaw, Stewart, Johnson Jr. and Cupps – were in the portal again after one unproductive season. Ojianwuna did not play. Glover averaged 4.4 points per game. Tilly and Noel each hovered around 10 points per game, but neither consistently impacted winning at a high level.
That leaves Parrish as the only clear hit.
One out of nine.
That’s not sustainable.
In an era where the transfer portal defines roster building, the gap is obvious. Michigan, playing for a national title Monday night, built its entire starting lineup through the portal.
Ohio State has the pieces to be a solid team next year. The foundation of Bynum, five-star forward Anthony Thompson and potentially Mobley Jr. is a promising core.
But if the Buckeyes want to make it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 14 years, they will need to start hitting on their portal finds.
