What Ohio State coach Jake Diebler said about the Buckeyes season-opening win over IU-Indy
COLUMBUS – Ohio State opened the 2025-26 season with a 118-102 win over IU-Indy on Monday night. The Buckeyes offense shined while their defense struggled throughout the game.
Following the win, Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler met with the Lettermen Row and the assembled media to discuss the game. Here’s what he had to say:
Diebler’s opening statement:
“First off, obviously this is a unique, unique opener. This is a unique style.This is a style that’s very familiar to me because this is how I was raised. Playing this type of up-tempo, trapping the whole time. Spreading guys out, shooting a lot of threes. So if you know my dad at all, we’re all too familiar with this. We knew going into this game, it was gonna be a real challenge.
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“And I thought in stretches, we did some really good things.They made some tough shots. They shot a ton of threes. For the most part, aside from a couple possessions, maybe a little more than a couple possessions. I thought we did a pretty good job on the glass. I know at least twice they had multiple rebounds in a possession. And then the second half, we didn’t take care of the ball well enough. It was we did a really good job in the first half of doing, I think we had maybe four turnovers in the first half. So obviously, game ones are a challenge in their own right. But proud of how connected we were, and now we gotta get back to work.”
Diebler on the Buckeyes defense:
“I think the 50% stands out. Only six steals stands out right away, them only having 13 turnovers. And listen, they made some tough shots. There were some kind of mid-range floaters in the paint,oversized that we challenged, and they banked a couple in. So I think that’s the fun part on the flip side of playing in a system like that.You get so much opportunity to just stay aggressive, and all of a sudden, you can get it going real quick. So defensively, I guess to answer your question, the field goal percentage, 50%, is obviously not good enough. And then I think we gotta get more deflections, we gotta be more active, pressure a little bit more defensively.