Jake Diebler Believes His Team Will Be Deeper This Year, Wanted To Build Around Mobley And Bynum

Ohio State undeniably took a step forward last basketball season, making it into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022. However, the Buckeyes lost to No. 9 seed TCU in the first round.

With important pieces Bruce Thornton, Devin Royal and Christoph Tilly, and others, leaving the program over the offseason, head coach Jake Diebler had to venture into the transfer portal to make more additions. He said on Monday that he is very happy with how the offseason has gone for the Buckeyes.

“As far as our roster goes, I love our roster,” Diebler said. “It’s big, versatile, it’s skilled, it’s smart, and I can’t wait to get to work.”

Part of the reason he says he loves his roster going into the 2026-27 season is because he believes it is deeper than what he’s had since he took over at Ohio State.

Last year, multiple Buckeyes dealt with injuries, with Brandon Noel missing most of the regular season, Tilly missing a few games with injuries, Royal dealing with his own ailments, and multiple others as well.

It wasn’t until late in the regular season when the roster was finally able to come together almost how Diebler intended when he put the team together. That was when the Buckeyes had their best stretch of the year, finishing the regular season with three straight wins against Big Ten competition to secure a double bye in the conference tournament and a spot in March Madness.

Diebler believes the injuries OSU suffered throughout the season had a lot to do with some of the underperformance throughout the year when the Buckeyes were considered a bubble team.

“I don’t think we were deep enough last year and I think that became a real issue with some of the injuries that we dealt with,” Diebler said. “There’s a lot of factors that go into being able to build some depth and I think we’ve improved in those areas.”

Ohio State went into the portal to add guards Justin Pippen from Cal, Curtis Givens III from Memphis and Jimmie Williams from Duquesne, each of whom played major roles for their teams last season. The Buckeyes also brought in 6-11 big man Andrija Jelavic from Kentucky.

Diebler believed those additions help the Buckeyes in multiple areas that he believes may have been relative weaknesses for last year’s team.

“What we wanted to do this offseason was have more versatility and play faster,” Diebler said. “Putting together this roster, those things were important. Also, we needed to get bigger, more positional size at every spot, and I feel like we did that.”

Many believed that Ohio State needed to go into the portal and add a major contributor at either point guard or center, but Diebler said he didn’t think that way because of who the team has returning from last season.

“We have to tailor it around guys like John Mobley and Amare Bynum,” he said.

The head coach said that Bynum and Mobley will be big parts of what they hope to accomplish this season.

“For (Bynum) to accomplish his goals and for us to accomplish ours, he’s requires to take a significant jump,” Diebler said. “The reason I’m so confident (he can do that) is I saw the consistency he operated with all year long. We saw, when you look at the last 10 games vs. the first 20 games and where he was as a player, gave me great confidence going into the offseason that, ‘Hey, that’s a building block for us.’ Same thing with John Mobley.”

“When we were going into this offseason, we wanted to play two — essentially — bigs at all times,” Diebler said. “We also wanted to bring in someone who could play differently than some of the guys we had on our roster and complement Amare at forward. That shrunk the list of players really quickly.

“What we saw in (Jelavic) is someone that can play center but can also play power forward. He didn’t get to play both positions at Kentucky, but when you look at who he was as a player before that, and what excites us about who he can be next season, he fits that guy who can slide between spots and complements the guys we had on our roster.”

Defense was also a big consideration for Diebler in the transfer portal, especially on the perimeter.

“We also wanted to get bigger on the perimeter. When you look at Justin, Curtis and Jimmy, they all have size for the perimeter. I think that will help us defensively,” Diebler said. “All three of those guys are two-way players. We need to be able to guard the ball better, and I think all three of those guys will help with that.”

There’s a long way to go until the regular season begins but Diebler has confidence that the Buckeyes have what it takes to take another step forward.