Jake Diebler’s explanation of Ohio State’s final play leaves Bruce Thornton under the bus

In his second full year as Ohio State’s head coach, Jake Diebler led the Buckeyes to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022. However, the ending of Ohio State’s 66-64 first-round loss to TCU in Greenville, South Carolina, on Thursday afternoon will leave plenty of Buckeyes fans questioning whether or not they have the right guy. 

After TCU’s Xavier Edmonds hit a go-ahead bucket, Ohio State called a timeout with 4.1 seconds remaining. Yet, despite having that much time, Buckeyes’ all-time leading scorer merely made it to half court where he pulled up for an ill-fated heave at the buzzer. 

While Diebler caught the immediate flak from the fanbase for the final play, his explanation in the postgame press conference leaves the blame squarely on his senior point guard. 

“Yeah, we got the ball to Bruce on the run, and we had two outlets down the floor for the throw-ahead. I was watching the ball, so it was hard to see if those guys were open or not,” Diebler explained. “I thought TCU corralled the ball well, and maybe that limited (Thornton’s) ability to get the ball down the floor, but we were trying to get it to him on the run and give him the freedom to make a decision.” 

Bruce Thornton’s lack of urgency more to blame than Jake Diebler

To be clear, Diebler didn’t throw Thornton under the bus for not getting up the floor with more urgency. He mostly deferred to analyze the play because he didn’t see if Thornton’s options were open down the floor. 

The TV angle of the final play doesn’t show an open Buckeye for Thornton to offload the ball to. In fact, it mostly shows Christoph Tilly running alongside Thornton and allowing his defender to “corral” the point guard. Thornton was put in a tough spot, but there wasn’t much else Diebler could do with a play-call; he just needed his senior to be decisive and attack much quicker. 

Diebler even presented the option of Thornton quickly getting the ball across half-court and calling a timeout to set up an out-of-bounds play for the final shot. So, even if Thornton didn’t go coast-to-coast a la Tyus Edney, or even Michigan’s Tre Donaldson last year in the tournament, only good things would have come from attacking with more urgency. The only thing he couldn’t afford to do was take his time getting the ball up the floor. 

Diebler is a flawed coach, and Ohio State may benefit from an extensive head coaching search after elevating him from the interim role following the 2023-24 season. However, it’s hard to pin the last play squarely on the coach when his veteran point guard failed to meet the urgency of the moment.