The Ohio State Buckeyes don't plan to make any major money moves in response to TTUN's national championship win against the UConn Huskies in the NCAA Tournament Finals this past Monday in Indianapolis.
As Bucknuts' Steve Helwagen notes, there could be additional spending, but it'd be raised by the basketball donors. Football-focused donors won't be deviating from the game plan to spend in the April portal window for basketball.
Helwagen stressed that it'll be on Buckeyes head basketball coach Jake Diebler and AD Ross Bjork to raise the funds to add "a high-level guard, a next-to-high-level big as a hedge on (Josh) Ojianwuna and a backup for (Amare) Bynum and then some depth pieces at one, two, and three to fill things out."
"I think Diebler and Bjork have a plan. OSU is kind of handcuffed in what it can do with revenue share as part of the $20 million the department can dole out. That will likely still be in the $2 million range. It's then basically on basketball-minded donors to earmark money for basketball and for Diebler to go out and raise funds so they have a war chest to go get some players. It sounds like they will have more than the estimated $7-8 million that was spent last year," Helwagen wrote.
Ohio State basketball will always be behind the 8-ball in spending
Gus Johnson spent time on FOX airwaves ripping the Buckeyes' hoops budget during a February 14 matchup with the Virginia Cavaliers, saying, “I’m going to have to call President (Ted) Carter and ask him if he can just show some love in the pocketbooks for the Buckeyes’ basketball team."
If that's not a sign that Ohio State is not a basketball school, this writer is not sure what would qualify as one. There's nothing that will change this way of operating at OSU, either. If anything was going to change it, TTUN running the table during March Madness would've been it.
The Ohio State University is a football school. That will forever be an evergreen statement. Unless Diebler and Bjork can find a winning combination with players on bargain contracts that have unshakeable chemistry, TTUN will likely always be big brother on the hardwood.