Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said on a Monday radio appearance with WOSU Public Media that while he is disappointed that the Buckeyes’ men’s basketball team missed out on the NCAA tournament for the third straight season, he still believes that the program is on the right trajectory and capable of achieving postseason success under the leadership head coach Jake Diebler.
“We’re always disappointed (to miss the tournament),” Bjork told “All Sides with Amy Juravich.” “Excellence is the standard here. Anytime you miss out on postseason opportunities, of course you’re disappointed. …Jake has done a great job of changing the culture, changing the mindset. How we operate the program is at a completely different level than the previous regime.
“Now we just have to get over the hump. We need to be in the conversation to be competing for Big Ten championships, a strong run in the postseason.”
Bjork’s comments come on the same day Ohio State abruptly ended its 2024-25 season by declining an invitation to the brand-new Crown Basketball Tournament, and 11 days after he said that Diebler was “meeting expectations” in his first year leading the program.
In the days in between those comments, the Buckeyes’ season hit a tailspin at the worst time of the year. They dropped their last two games to Indiana at Assembly Hall and Iowa in the first round of the Big Ten tournament to fall out of contention for the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season, the first time the team has done so in 20 years (2002-05).
In each of those two crucial losses, the Buckeyes held leads in the second half (10 points against Indiana, one against Iowa) only for them to relinquish them in the game’s final minutes. Bjork acknowledged that one thing Diebler and Ohio State may need to improve upon next season is to finish games that they are leading late, a problem that bit them throughout the year.
“Anytime you’re in this competitive world you want to win at the highest level, so when you have those disappointments you analyze, OK, what do we need?” Bjork said. “How do we finish these games where we had the lead with five minutes left, with seven minutes left? Those are the things we have to get over, and Jake knows that. The staff knows that. The players know that.”
Bjork also commented on the importance of player retention this offseason — which he thinks Diebler can accomplish due to the confidence the players they have in him — as well as why the team declined to play in the Crown, which he said was due to the uncertainty surrounding the roster and Diebler wanting to get in front of resetting his 2025-26 roster through the transfer portal rather than preparing for more games.
But perhaps most importantly, Bjork maintained that he is confident Diebler has all the qualities and intangibles needed to take the program back to Big Ten and national relevance.
“Jake’s the right guy. He’s got vision. He’s got energy. He relates to the players in this modern era,” Bjork said. “We’ve just got to get over the hump and there’s a lot of work happening behind the scenes to get that done.”
