Ohio State basketball might make March interesting after all
The Buckeyes picked up a huge boost with a win against No. 8 Purdue on Sunday.
COLUMBUS — If Jake Diebler coached against Matt Painter all the time, then this would be easy.
It is perhaps the most remarkable thing about Diebler’s 72-game run as Ohio State’s head coach, interim or otherwise, that he’s never lost to Painter, Purdue’s future Hall of Fame head coach. Diebler has now bested Painter three times in three tries. The 39-year-old has won 100 percent of his games against Painter, a five-time Big Ten Coach of the Year, and 58 percent of his games against everybody else.
Truly, it defies logic.
Sunday’s 82-74 win for the Buckeyes over the No. 8 Boilermakers was Diebler’s biggest over Painter, given how life has gone lately for Ohio State. A team that has lived on the NCAA Tournament bubble basically since people started paying attention to such things this season, and was previously mired in an alternating win-loss-win-loss streak since the end of January, came into Sunday staring down a three-game losing streak if it couldn’t beat Purdue. And there was little this team, which has beaten almost all the teams it should and almost none it shouldn’t, has done this year to suggest it could pull off the upset.
Good thing Diebler apparently has the skinny on how to beat Painter repeatedly.
“It’s a game-by-game thing,” Diebler said, being careful not to tread anywhere near gloating about his unblemished record against one of the game’s best coaches. “I assure you, we didn’t prepare for this game any differently than we prepared for any other game. I wish I could tell you we have a secret sauce. I just think our execution was high level.”
Ohio State played winning basketball on March 1, and that’s something worth getting excited about.
The Buckeyes (18-11, 10-8 Big Ten) should find themselves on the right side of the NCAA Tournament projections coming off of this game. Sunday morning, they were among the first four teams out for most forecasters. Now they should control their own destiny. If they can win their last two games, at Penn State on Wednesday and home against Indiana next Saturday, they should be in. They’ll be favored in both. Win both, and the Big Ten Tournament shouldn’t have any bearing on whether or not OSU experiences March Madness for the first time in four years, only what its seed is.
Here is where we’ll tell you that Ohio State hasn’t won three Big Ten games in a row since January of 2025. But, hey, that run started with Diebler’s second win against Painter, a 73-69 win at then-No. 11 Purdue. Maybe this latest Diebler triumph over Painter can feed a similar run.
If this team can bottle up most of what led to Sunday’s win and carry it forward, then they’ll have a heck of a shot at pulling it off.
Ohio State went down seven early, but came back and led by halftime. This was a game that didn’t feature many prolonged scoring runs, but there were a few times when Purdue tried to punch its way back in. Most of those swings were met with an Ohio State counterpunch.
Purdue cut the Buckeye lead, which got as big as 16, to eight midway through the second half. A “Let’s Go Boilers” chant got pretty loud inside The Schottenstein Center. West Lafayette to Columbus wasn’t too much of a hike for a decent number of Purdue fans to show up here. But Devin Royal quieted them by grabbing an offensive rebound — one of his six on the day — getting fouled, and securing more possession time for his team that set up John Mobley Jr. for a pull-up jumper that put the Buckeyes back up by 10. Purdue converted a three-point play on the other end. OSU responded with a possession that featured two offensive board tip-outs from backup center Ivan Njegovan, the second of which found its way to Bruce Thornton for a straight-on 3-pointer that again made it a 10-point lead.
The Boilermakes cut it to six inside of three minutes to play. Ohio State responded with a crisp offensive possession: Christoph Tilly passing to a cutting Taison Chatman, who turned down a potentially contested layup and kicked to Amare Bynum in the corner for an open 3 that gave OSU more cushion. After a Purdue turnover, Royal came darting in from the periphery to dunk back a Tilly miss and give his team an 11-point lead inside of two minutes to play.
These are sequences that have, too often, eluded Ohio State. These are sequences that Diebler’s team, which got waxed during the week at Iowa, looked incapable of making just a few days ago.
“They went out and responded,” Diebler said. “That’s who we are. We’re resilient.”
“Ohio State played harder than us,” Painter said.
It helped that the Buckeyes were healthy-ish. They had been down a starter in each of the last four games. Mobley missed time with a broken pinky. Royal missed the Michigan State game due to illness. Tilly missed the Iowa game, sporting a walking boot on his left foot, and nearly missed Sunday’s game (as did Bynum). Both players were game-time decisions, but played, each sporting compression sleeves on their left leg.
This team has been navigating injuries, true. Illness has been an issue as well, though Diebler said the players seem to be on the other side of that particular tunnel. Things are shaping up for Ohio State to take this win and use it as a boost. It must navigate these two remaining games, each of them tricky in their own way.
For instance, Penn State, which has only three Big Ten wins, just beat the Iowa team that handled Ohio State over the weekend.
“The way the Big Ten is, anybody can be beat,” Thornton said.
Ohio State can’t waste this by laying an egg in State College midweek or losing to Indiana next weekend.
The Buckeyes, despite being 4-4 in their last eight games, have played like a top-25 team since the start of February, according to the efficiency metrics kept at BartTorvik.com. Indiana has played like a team outside the top 60 over that span, and Penn State has been bad all year.
Things can change quickly, and Ohio State is suddenly in a very different position as March begins.
Diebler is an average coach but his players will fight for him at least
The fact they were leading by double digits for large stretches of the game was encouraging. Plus they actually closed it out late when Purdue was battling back. Nice win.