Ohio State basketball thoughts: Jake Diebler's first tournament, Buckeyes' tough draw

Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler will lead the Buckeyes into the NCAA Tournament this week. (Photo by Bill Landis)

COLUMBUS — Four thoughts on Ohio State basketball and its NCAA Tournament draw against TCU. The Buckeyes and Horned Frogs will play Thursday at 12:15 p.m. ET in Greenville, S.C.

1. There’s a small room tucked away in the corner of Ohio State’s practice gym. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a broom closet. Jake Diebler used to work in there back when he was the staff video coordinator under Thad Matta more than a decade ago.

Diebler held that role for Matta’s last two NCAA Tournament teams at Ohio State. Those turned out to be the last tournament teams of Matta’s career. Matta retired on Monday after four seasons at Butler, where he never finished better than seventh in the Big East. Diebler saw the last two good years of Matta, an OSU team that lost its NCAA Tournament opener to Dayton in 2013-14 and another team that lost to Arizona in the second round the following year.

Ohio State’s current head coach has experienced March Madness at every coaching stop he’s had: once as an assistant at Valparaiso, his alma mater, once as an assistant at Vanderbilt, and four times as an assistant at Ohio State. But this will be his first NCAA Tournament as a head coach. As Diebler was informed of Matta’s retirement on Monday, I asked him what he had picked up at those previous stops about what it takes to prep for the tournament.

“You’re so consumed with what’s going on at that time that I don’t think I ever stopped to think about what I would do if I got that opportunity,” Diebler said. “But there were certainly times (Sunday) night — and I reached out to some people to ask how they handled from Selection Show to your first game — you think about that. But back then, all I thought about was making sure those guys had the film when they wanted it, and trying to think ahead, anticipate and be ready.”

Diebler’s come a long way in a short period of time from the guy who was cutting up film in a glorified closet for Matta’s staff.

“As a video coordinator, you’re following bracketology and trying to anticipate which 10 or 12 teams you could get matched up against,” he said. “You start there, and you’re gathering, trying to get five games maybe of each. As it gets closer, you start narrowing it down to four or six teams and begin working on personnel film for the coach who handles personnel. I spent a lot of time back in this little closet back here.”

He didn’t have to do that on Sunday once Ohio State found out it was playing TCU. The current video staff and managers had already cut up clips of the Horned Frogs for him. Perks of being a head coach.