You’re Nuts: How should Ohio State men’s basketball use its final open scholarship?

The Ohio State men’s basketball team appeared to be finished adding impact players to its 2024-2025 roster over a month ago with the addition of sophomore forward and former Duke Blue Devil Sean Stewart. Word on the street was that first-year head coach Jake Diebler was looking to add an international post player to the roster who would be a project or “developmental” player, who would’ve been unlikely to make a big impact this season. The team is already on campus working out, but if the Buckeyes added an international player, he wouldn’t join the program until classes start in August.

That was the plan, at least, until sophomore guard Taison Chatman suffered a season-ending knee injury recently. The team has not confirmed what the injury was or when he hurt it, although Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch reported that it was a torn left ACL. Jake Diebler said that Chatman had a clean, successful surgery this week and that he expects Chatman to recover fully by next summer.

In the meantime, how does Ohio State use its last scholarship, with this development in mind?

Last week, Connor and Justin debated the best performance against the Buckeyes since 2010. Connor went with Brandon Paul scoring 43 for Illinois back in 2012. Justin picked Kevin O’Banor’s all-time performance for 15-seed Oral Roberts in the 2021 NCAA Tournament when he had 30 points and 11 rebounds. 66% of the readers sided with Justin — clearly, people still have PTSD about that game.

After 157 weeks:

Connor- 76
Justin- 61
Other- 16

(There have been four ties)

This week, the guys are each picking a player that they think would make sense to use Ohio State’s final available scholarship on. Backcourt depth and another center are two needs that are currently on the coaching staff’s radar.

This week’s question: How should Ohio State men’s basketball use its final open scholarship?

Connor: Just stick with the international big

This is the extremely not fun answer that will definitely lose, but the kind of guard Ohio State would seek — a Dale Bonner-type — might not exist in the transfer portal at this point of the summer. Because of that, I don’t see much of a reason for Diebler and his coaching staff to completely change course and hunt down another guard.

It’s late June, so it’s slim pickings on the transfer market. Most teams are already on campus starting summer workouts, so anyone still looking for a team is behind schedule. That also means that if you’re a transfer player still looking for a team, either the demand for your services was not too high, or your expectations for a role were much higher than any team had in mind when recruiting you.

A big chunk of the remaining guards in the transfer portal are players who were big-time scorers in small conferences, like David Coit (Northern Illinois), Andrew Taylor (Marshall), and August Mahoney (Yale). Former Kansas State guard Ques Glover is also available and is looking for his fourth school in six seasons (apparently). These all strike me as players who are likely seeking significant roles, even if the calendar indicates that nobody is going to give them that role at this point.

If Ohio State adds a guard, they almost need a Dale Bonner or Andrew Dakich type — someone who can bring the ball up the floor but not take many shots away from the young guys who will continue to develop. I’m not sure there are many players like that available in the portal, or if they are, they didn’t enter the transfer portal to take that role somewhere else.

With so few good options available, I would rather see Juni Mobley and Colin White pick up more minutes than a lower-end transfer come in and play 15 minutes per game. Let Evan Mahaffey and Micah Parrish handle the ball a little bit more, too — just spread some of those minutes lost from Chatman out among guys already on the team.

I’m not sure how well a “project” center will pan out in the transfer portal, immediate-eligibility era of college basketball, but the transfer portal is as picked over as the candy aisle at Target the day before Halloween, so adding a guard from that pool just doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Justin: David Coit

This is a weird one to me because David Coit is a great player and should be a solid addition to any team. But it is June 21, and he is still in the transfer portal.

Here is the thing. Any guard that you bring in is only going to play 15-20 minutes at most, and if Juni Mobley comes in and plays well immediately, it could be even less.

So, a player like David Coit, who will likely be looking to play more minutes than that as transfers,

Coit averaged 20.8 points per game, 3.2 assists per game, and 3.4 rebounds per game while shooting 40.7 percent from the field, 33.7 percent from three-point range and 88.5 percent from the free-throw line.

For his career in two years at Northern Illinois, he averaged 18.1 points per game, 3.0 assists per game, and 3.1 rebounds per game. He did shoot 37.7 percent from three-point range in his first season with the Huskies.

He shot the three-ball at an extremely high clip and relatively well, something that could benefit the Buckeyes this season and pair well alongside Mobley. In his two years at Northern Illinois, he made 3.0 three-pointers per game on 8.5 attempts per game. For reference, that is more three-point attempts per game than Jamison Battle averaged in his career.

Coit was an elite scorer at the mid-major level, so the only two questions are: will that translate to the Big Ten, and would he be willing to take a fairly small role but be a go-to scorer off the bench?