The Ohio State basketball program decided to end its season after not making the NCAA Tournament. Instead of playing in The Crown, they decided to start the offseason. They decided to end the year instead of trying to give this team a little more run.
Now, Jake Diebler will try to figure out a way to get his team to play better next year. A big way to do that is to improve the roster with the transfer portal. Of course, that means that current Buckeyes can exit using the transfer portal, as well. Austin Parks has already decided to hit the portal.
Parks is the first player, but he certainly won't be the last. There will be more Ohio State Buckeyes who decide to enter the transfer portal when it officially opens on Monday. The question is, how many players will the Buckeyes lose in the portal this season?
Calculating how many players the Ohio State basketball team could lose to the transfer portal
Diebler's priority needs to be to make sure that he can bring back Bruce Thornton, Juni Mobley, and Devin Royal. Everyone else is fair game to transfer. So which players could leave? Sean Stewart came in for a year after transferring from Duke, but he might look to bounce again.
Aaron Bradshaw could decide to transfer somewhere else that could give him a starting job, not that he's earned it. Bradshaw was arguably the worst player from the portal this year who actually played for Ohio State. Only Meechie Johnson was a worse grab from the portal.
It wouldn't be shocking to see the Buckeyes lose two or three guys to the portal. The good news is that they get Taison Chapman back next year after he missed the entire season with an injury. Getting him back should help the backcourt be better next season.
Ohio State will lose Ques Glover, Micah Parrish, and Evan Mahaffey. They have plenty of work to do in the transfer portal in order to get guys who can be better than they were. Diebler has his work cut out for him.