You don't know what you've got till it's gone. That seems to be the case for Jake Diebler and the Ohio State Buckeyes. For four years, Bruce Thornton scratched and clawed for every opportunity to get this team into the Big Dance. While they earned the No. 8 seed in this year's NCAA Tournament, it proved to be all for naught, based on a foolish out-of-timeout play from Diebler against the clock...
After the game, Diebler explained with intense emotion how much Thornton meant to the program.
"That I love him. That he'll always be a part of our family. And I think it's not just him, it's all those guys. Those guys bought into what we wanted to do. We took an important step for our program, and he was a huge reason for that."
Diebler was almost brought to tears after was the most embarrassing loss of his professional career.
"I love him... he will always be apart of our family. It's not just him it's all those guys"
— Adam King (@AdamKing10TV) March 19, 2026
Jake Diebler got emotional talking about Bruce Thornton playing his final game.
He said he built this locker room on being a family from the beginning and that love showed post game: pic.twitter.com/tbovAfzfES
Diebler may deserve all the criticism for how the game ended, but this is a real moment from him.
Jake Diebler expresses how important Bruce Thornton was to Ohio State
Diebler may have been promoted from within after his predecessor and former boss Chris Holtmann was fired midway through the 2023-24 season. However, he still needed to get total buy-in from his players. Thornton was chief among them. The Milton, Georgia native came to the Big Ten with a vision to help get Ohio State back on top of things. To make the tournament in his final year was so special.
Even though it did not go according to plan for Ohio State vs. TCU, this was a positive step in the right direction for the team. While Thornton has exhausted all of his eligibility, the way Diebler reacted after the fact after this loss in this viral video moment could work out for him in the end. No matter what Buckeye Nation tries to say about him, Diebler goes to bat for his players, and they love him for it.
Overall, Ohio State must start next season once again at the base of the mountain. They must put in the necessary work to scale it in an attempt to reach the summit. It will not be easy, but it has to be done. While Diebler's 2025-26 team set the tone for what needs to be done moving forward, they will have to do it without Thornton, and that is what hurts the most. All good things must come to an end.
Ohio State might have only been a Round of 32 team this season, but we will never know after that...