When the Ohio State football program was recruiting J.T. Tuimoloau, it was very involved. He was a five-star defensive end and rated as one of the best recruits in the country. In fact, he was ranked as the second-best recruit in the entire country in the 2021 class.
While Tuimoloau was visiting Ohio State, he also visited Chris Holtmann and talked with the Ohio State basketball coaches. He wanted to try to play both football and basketball in college. He was a really good basketball player in high school, and he had several offers to play basketball.
In the end, Ryan Day thought it was best that Tuimoloau stick to just football. Holtmann did as well, and that's what he did. But could Tuimoloau have helped the Buckeyes win more basketball games? Would he have been an impact player for the Ohio State Buckeyes?
Could J.T. Tuimoloau have helped the Ohio State basketball program?
Tuimoloau was 6'5 and 265 pounds coming in as a freshman. He could have given the Buckeyes a forward who could really score on the basketball court. Of course, he wouldn't have been able to play during the non-conference portion of the schedule. In fact, he probably would have only been able to play 20 games or less.
Holtmann needed impact players on his team. Tuimoloau could have given him some punch when Big Ten play started. That's really when Holtmann's teams started to play poorly. The January slide was an annual thing that Ohio State basketball fans had to deal with.
In all likelihood, it wouldn't have made sense for Tuimoloau to try to play both sports. He was too good of a football player for Day to allow him to play both sports, especially only being part-time in basketball. It's still something interesting to think about.
Perhaps even his limited playing time would have helped Ohio State make the NCAA Tournament sometime in the last three years. It would have been fun to see.