The Ohio State basketball team failed to take down the Virginia Cavaliers on Saturday night in a neutral-site game. Had the Buckeyes been able to finish it, they would have been awarded their first Quad 1 victory of the season. That is something they have failed to be able to have on their resume.
Losing that game was tough, but it wasn't the main story that emerged from that contest. What seemed to be a bigger story was that Gus Johnson made a comment about Ohio State's NIL. He seemed to indicate that the Ohio State Buckeyes spend all of their NIL money on football instead of basketball.
That is not true, as Ross Bjork has mentioned that the bulk of the NIL funds go towards the football program, the men's and women's basketball program, and women's volleyball. Diebler set the record straight with the NIL conversation and fired back at Johnson.
Ohio State basketball coach Jake Diebler fires back at Gus Johnson over NIL comments
While speaking on a video press conference, Diebler made sure to let everyone know he's not worried about what Johnson had to say about the program's NIL.
"All information isn't accurate information. There's an element of NIL that's hidden. So everything that you see, or you read, regardless of who it's from, we're not speaking exclusively to us right now, there's a lot of inaccurate information out there...This year, all we're focused on is Wisconsin right now and having a great practice."
Diebler knows that it's not accurate that all of the NIL money goes towards football. He did acknowledge that the Ohio State Buckeyes do end up spending a lot of money on football. If Ohio State had horrible NIL with the basketball program, they wouldn't be able to bring in five-star recruit Anthony Thompson.
Bringing in five-star recruits is a sign that Ohio State's basketball program means that they clearly have enough NIL money to make the program successful. Using that money wisely and accurately is going to be the key to the program having more success moving forward.
Of course, better coaching is going to be needed, too.