Jake Diebler explains Ohio State's rebounding issues vs Minnesota

Jake Diebler has brought some fire back to the Ohio State Buckeyes since taking over the program, but a loss to Minnesota on Thursday doused some flames.

The Buckeyes were hot after a 73-69 upset over No. 2 Purdue, but Ohio State couldn’t replicate that performance against the Golden Gophers earlier this week. One of the reasons why was the inability of the Buckeyes to out-rebound Minnesota, which Diebler touched on after the game.

“I think there were a couple of times we were in rotations, because we were trapping. Then there were times the ball was bouncing around the court, and they got to it before we did. Sometimes it’s positioning, has something to do with that. But I felt like there were a couple of opportunities where we should’ve beat them to it,” Diebler explained, via The Columbus Dispatch. “But listen, their physicality and size is real. They’re a good rebounding team. We knew that. We worked on that. We did a better job in the second half, and really we did a better job for a significant portion of the first half. Just those kind of bookends.

“So I was really proud of the way our guys fought. The majority of the game, we did some really good things. That’s what we talked about, we’ve got to do that more. We’ve got to find a way to lean into that and do that more.”

Alas, the performance of the Golden Gophers on the glass was borderline dominant in the first half, as Minnesota outscored OSU 42-34 in that time. In contrast, the Buckeyes actually won the final 20 minutes, clawing out one more point than the Golden Gophers in the second half. Nonetheless, it was too little, too late.

The loss certainly couldn’t be blamed on sophomore guard Bruce Thornton, who exploded for a team-high 25 points and six assists while shooting 10-14 from the field. Jamison Battle did his part too, adding 21 points in the Buckeyes valiant effort.

Of course, one loss isn’t the end of the world for the Buckeyes, especially against a team like Minnesota. The Golden Gophers have won five of their last seven and were the favorites against OSU.

Since being named the interim leader of the Buckeyes, Jake Diebler has done an admirable job. We’ll see if there’s more performances like Ohio State’s against Purdue moving forward, as the Big Ten power looks to end the 2023-2024 campaign strong.

On3’s Grant Grubbs contributed to this article.