By Alex Andrejev, Cameron Teague Robinson and Nicole Auerbach
Ohio State promoted interim basketball coach Jake Diebler to the full-time role, the school announced Sunday.
Diebler, who previously served as the team’s associate head coach, took over in the interim head coaching role on Feb. 14 when Ohio State fired Chris Holtmann in the middle of Holtmann’s seventh season. Holtmann has since been hired by DePaul.
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Diebler won six of his eight games as the Buckeyes’ interim head coach, including a home win over No. 2 Purdue in his first game at the helm. The Buckeyes also ended a 16-game road losing streak, which stretched back to Jan. 1, 2023, with a 60-57 win over Michigan State in just Diebler’s third game.
Diebler, 37, is an Ohio native who played at Valparaiso University in Indiana. He served on Valparaiso’s staff for four years before joining Ohio State as a video coordinator from 2014-16. In 2019, he returned to Ohio State as an assistant coach after a three-year stint at Vanderbilt in the same role.
“Jake Diebler possesses all of the characteristics we were seeking as we conducted a very comprehensive and thorough search for a new head coach,” incoming athletic director Ross Bjork, whose tenure becomes official in July, said. “Those include coaching ability, passion, energy, program knowledge, character, integrity and ties to Ohio. As an Ohio native, the son of a longtime Ohio high school coach and with deep connections to Ohio State, Jake knows what it takes to lead this program on a championship course.”
Diebler is the 15th head coach in school history and the first from Ohio.
Under Holtmann, the Buckeyes appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 (and would have in 2020), but the team was 30-30 over his final 60 games with a 9-25 Big Ten record.
The Buckeyes fell to Illinois 77-74 in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals Friday.
The case for hiring Diebler
Though Ohio State is unlikely to make the NCAA Tournament, its season was saved by athletic director Gene Smith’s decision to fire Holtmann and name Diebler the interim.
It became evident Diebler needed to be a candidate in the head coaching search after leading the Buckeyes to a four-game winning streak to end the regular season. But in the Big Ten Tournament, Ohio State beat Iowa and lost by three points to Illinois. A win against Illinois would’ve put the Buckeyes squarely on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament.
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Ohio State finished the season 20-13 and 9-11 in conference play with Diebler taking complete credit for six of those wins in just one month.
Bjork ran the coaching search and landed the candidate that makes the most sense: Diebler, the guy who saved Ohio State’s season. — Cameron Teague Robinson, Ohio State beat writer
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(Photo: David Berding / Getty Images)