Ohio State assistant coach Mike Wells spent the last two basketball seasons as the head coach of the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian National Basketball League.
Had Buckeye head coach Jake Diebler not come calling, Wells said he probably would have been back in Australia with the 36ers.
So what was it about Ohio State that made it a place Wells wanted to spend the 2026-27 basketball season as an assistant coach at the college level?
“(It’s) The Ohio State University. It’s very simple,” Wells said. “Everybody that’s grown up in the state of Ohio, I think everyone grows up wanting to be a part of this university at some point. My journey was probably different than a lot of people.
“I’ve always wanted to be a part of a college basketball high-major program. When this opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t pass it up.”
Wells has been coaching basketball since he was an assistant with Mount Vernon Nazarene during the 1993-94 season. From there, he became a video coordinator at the NBA level, a job that turned into NBA coaching experience as an assistant by 1999.
He has made stops with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Washington Wizards, Utah Jazz and Charlotte Hornets. He has also made multiple stops at the college level at George Mason and South Florida.
He believes all of that experience is going to help him make the current Buckeyes’ team better, and he believes his focus will be more on the offensive end.
“It’s probably an offensive focus,” Wells said. “How we play and how efficient we are. There were a lot of statistical categories that this team was great in the Big Ten (last year). We’re trying to be better at the things that we were good at and things that maybe we weren’t so good at, making a marginal improvement.”
Wells grew up in Mount Vernon, Ohio, so his connection to the Buckeyes goes back to then when he was an Ohio State fan. He said that fandom has remained throughout his coaching career, even when he was in Australia.
“I was getting up at 3:30 (a.m.) last year and watching the Ohio State-Michigan game,” Wells said. “I got my boys up and it was on TV (in Australia). We didn’t miss a game.
Wells also told a story about when he was a video coordinator with the Rockets and former NBA star Charles Barkley flew him out to watch an NCAA Tournament game the Buckeyes played in.
“Ohio State played Auburn in the Sweet 16 when Scoonie Penn was the point guard,” Wells recalled. “I was a video coordinator with the Houston Rockets and Charles Barkley called me — he was on our team at that point — and he knew I was an Ohio State fan, and he was like, ‘Hey, do you want to go to the game today?’ “
Wells said he didn’t think they could make it to the game that was in Knoxville, Tenn., from Houston because he said the game began three hours from the time that Barkley called him. But the NBA legend had a plan to make it.
“He had a private jet because he wanted to watch Auburn play,” Wells said. “I drive out there because I’m like 30 years old and he has a private plane land, we go to the game and sit behind the Auburn bench and I’m cheering on Scoonie Penn and the guys because Ohio State won.”
Now Wells’ connection with Ohio State is much more direct as an assistant coach, and he is looking forward to getting the season started as a Buckeye.
