Ohio State basketball is a sleeping giant with a trophy case that proves it was once wide awake. The 1960 national championship — Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek — remains the program's peak, with runner-up finishes in 1961 and 1962. The modern golden age came under Thad Matta: the 2007 national title game behind Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr., and the 2012 Final Four with Jared Sullinger and Deshaun Thomas. Value City Arena at the Schottenstein Center has seen the best of it, and the scarlet and gray expect to see it again.
The recent years have been quieter. Chris Holtmann's tenure ended midseason in February 2024, and assistant Jake Diebler — a program lifer — took the interim tag and then the job. His second full season, 2025-26, was a genuine step: 21-13 overall, 12-8 in the Big Ten — the program's first winning conference record since 2021-22 — and a return to the NCAA tournament for the first time in four years. The ending stung: a Round of 64 loss to TCU in Greenville, South Carolina. But the arrow pointed up.
Then came the exodus. Bruce Thornton — the program's heartbeat — graduated and moved on to the NBA, and the roster turned over hard. Diebler's response was a deliberate makeover: size. Last season's Buckeyes averaged 77.8 inches, 101st in the country per KenPom, while the national champions and the Final Four teams were all significantly taller. ‘We needed more positional size at every spot: positional size in the frontcourt and in the backcourt. And I feel like we did that,’ Diebler said in June.
The foundation is the two who stayed — and staying was a fight. Junior guard John Mobley Jr. averaged 15.7 points per game last season, declared for the NBA Draft, and withdrew to return; sophomore forward Amare Bynum, the 6-foot-8 Omaha athlete with an open-court game built for the Big Ten, did the same. Diebler revealed this summer that other programs actively tried to poach both: ‘If John Mobley or Amare Bynum would have been in the transfer portal, they'd be some of the best players in the country right now.’ The Buckeyes kept them. Both will represent Ohio State at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago on October 7 and 8, and Lindy's has Mobley as a preseason second-team All-Big Ten pick and the No. 39 player in the country.
The reinforcements are the deepest haul of the Diebler era. Four transfers: junior guard Curtis Givens III from Memphis, senior guard Jimmie Williams from Duquesne, junior forward Andrija Jelavic from Kentucky, and junior guard Justin Pippen from Cal. And a five-man freshman class headlined by McDonald's All-American Anthony Thompson — Ohio State's highest-ranked signee since Jared Sullinger in 2010, the No. 33 player nationally per Lindy's and a preseason second-team All-Big Ten pick — plus guard LJ Smith, forwards Alex Smith and Lee Aaliya, and 7-foot-1 center Vuk Lazarevic. Diebler: ‘I think this is the deepest team we've had, and I don't know that it's even close.’
The believers are buying in. Lindy's 2026-27 preview ranks Ohio State No. 19 nationally, projects a fifth-place Big Ten finish and a Round of 32 trip, with Mobley on one of four regional covers. Mobley (No. 39), Thompson (No. 33) and Bynum (No. 82) all land in the magazine's top 150 players: ‘The talent level is high, bordering on elite, with McDonald's All-American Anthony Thompson joining a fine portal class and holdovers John Mobley Jr. and Amare Bynum, who both should be in contention for all-conference honors.’ The runway is set: a public exhibition outdoors against Cincinnati on October 7 at the Lindner Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, another against Butler on October 25 at the Schott, then the real thing — November 2 against BYU at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, and the home opener November 6 against Youngstown State.
Lindy's also issued the warning: this is a ‘prove it’ year for Diebler, ‘fine, but not more than that in a league of elite coaches and resources.’ The talent is bordering on elite. The Big Ten — home of the defending national champions — is a meat grinder. If the freshmen hit — ‘if both freshmen reach their potential, the Buckeyes could be a monster’ — Ohio State goes from tournament team to something much bigger. The sleeping giant is stirring.
The Big Ten offers no shelter. The defending national champions loom, Michigan State and Purdue reload every year, and the road schedule is a nightly referendum. But Value City Arena at the Schottenstein Center — 18,000-plus strong when the Buckeyes are rolling — remains one of the league's great venues, and Columbus still recruits like a blue blood. The pieces are in place. The coach has the deepest roster of his tenure. The only thing left is to prove it, in March, when it counts.
