Head coach Jake Diebler looks on from the sidelines during Ohio State’s 81-77 win over Cornell in the first round of the NIT Tournament. Credit: Caleb Blake | Lantern File Photo.
Coming off its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2022, Ohio State men’s basketball is looking to take another step from last year.
Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler said that the team’s offseason approach was focused on not being satisfied with last year’s season and raising the basketball program to a higher standard.?
“Whether it was putting the roster together, whether it was hiring, that was the lens I was viewing those decisions through was how does it take our program to the next level,” Diebler said.
Despite losing the program’s all-time leading scorer Bruce Thornton, the Buckeyes brought in four transfers, three incoming freshmen and retained key players such as guard John Mobley Jr. and forward Amare Bynum.
“As far as the roster goes, I love where our roster is,” Diebler said. “This roster is big. It’s versatile. It’s skilled. It’s smart. I can’t wait to get to work.”
Diebler said a big part of putting the team together was to tailor it to Mobley and Bynum, the only two of the Buckeyes’ top seven scorers from the 2025-26 season that are rejoining for the upcoming season.?
“If [Mobley] or [Bynum] would have been in the transfer portal, they’d be some of the best players in the country, and there were plenty of teams that tried to push them into the transfer portal,” Diebler said. “So them, really right away, saying, ‘Hey, this is where I want to be, and we’re building something and we want to take it to the next level,’ was awesome. As for us as a staff, that allowed us early on to go out and say, ‘Okay, how do we build around these two guys?’”
When looking in the transfer portal, Diebler said he wanted to bring in players who could defend at a high level and be able to play multiple positions on the perimeter.
With this mentality, the program brings in guards Jimmie Williams from Duquesne, Curtis Givens III from Memphis, Justin Pippen from California and forward Andrija Jelavic from Kentucky.?
Incoming freshmen for the program include five-star forward Anthony Thompson, four-star forward Alex Smith and 7-foot-1 center Vuk Lazarevic, per prior Lantern reporting.?
In addition to seven new players, Diebler announced he has finalized his coaching staff for the upcoming season.?
Ohio State has promoted assistant coach Jamall Walker to associate head coach to fill the position former associate head coach Joel Justus left earlier this year for a position at Vanderbilt. Diebler said Walker has served as that key voice within the program since arriving in Columbus, which made the promotion an easy decision during the offseason.?
Ohio State’s staff also added Ohio native and former NBA assistant coach Mike Wells as an assistant coach, welcomed back Dave Richardson as strength and conditioning coach after an eight-year absence with the program and brought former Buckeye standout and fourth-leading scorer in program history, William Buford, onto the staff as program assistant.
Wells has over 27 years of NBA experience and most recently served as the head coach of the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian National Basketball League.
“[Wells] has really an impressive resume, and one that is going to push me and our program forward in ways that wouldn’t have been able to be accomplished if we had hired a traditional college assistant coach,” Diebler said. “So, when I had an opportunity to add to our staff, I wanted to add, certainly, someone who can help push us on the offensive side of the ball.”?
Richardson, who was Ohio State’s strength and conditioning coach from 2005-2018, has spent the past eight years at Arkansas, in which he contributed to five Sweet 16 seasons with the Razorbacks.
“I’ve known [Richardson] for a long time, and [Richardson’s] won everywhere he’s been,” Diebler said. “He’s won championships, he’s won in March and I’m really excited for the impact that he’s going to have on our program as well.”
Though this is Buford’s first coaching job, Diebler said his experience will help him connect with players and allow the entirety of the team to improve.
“[Buford] wasn’t hired because he’s a former player, that was an element of it,” Diebler said. “[I] think he’s going to be really good for us, and we’ve already seen in a short amount of time his hire be valuable, and I can’t wait to see how impactful it is.”
Diebler believes the roster and staffing changes will contribute heavily to the team’s offseason goal of “raising the level” of the program.
Diebler said he is eager to begin when the entirety of the group arrives on campus in the upcoming weeks.
“We’re going to go through hard times this year, everybody does in college basketball, so that chemistry is valuable,” Diebler said. “The summer is about building that, while also, us laying a foundation offensively and defensively, and then forming a collective toughness that you got to have to win in this league.”
