Is Ohio State Basketball Simply Getting What It Pays For?

Columbus, Ohio — The Buckeyes are once again flirting with the NCAA Tournament bubble, and inside the hallways of Value City Arena the same question echoes louder each February: is this as good as it gets for Ohio State basketball?

On the surface, the program still carries the swagger of a blue-blood. Head coach Jake Diebler insists the standard is “way up here” and that the Buckeyes “are not trying to just be good — we’re trying to win championships.” Yet the numbers tell a more modest story. With eight regular-season games left, Ohio State sits squarely on the cut-line, needing wins to avoid missing the Big Dance for the third time in six years.

That gap between rhetoric and reality prompted a blunt conversation on the latest Buckeye Talk podcast, where cleveland.com’s Stephen Means and Stefan Krajisnik asked the uncomfortable question now dominating message-board debates: what if the current product is exactly what the university’s checkbook ordered?

“What if this is fine?” Means posed. “You have four sports as part of your revenue share, but one sport is going to dominate that, and that’s football… Ohio State is near the bottom of the Big Ten in terms of what they’ve invested into its basketball team. And so maybe you get it. You reap what you sow.”

The statement lands like a half-court heave in 2024’s era of seven-figure NIL packages and escalating coaching salaries. Athletic departments across the country are being forced to choose which revenue sport will eat first, and in Columbus the answer is unmistakable. Ryan Day’s football operation has assembled a roster stacked through aggressive NIL spending and portal hunting, while the basketball program operates on a comparatively shoestring budget within the conference.

Means pushed the pragmatism further: “But what if it doesn’t exist anymore? What if this is fine?… Here are your resources. Maximize them.”

The counter-example is impossible to ignore. Less than three hours up U.S. 23, Michigan is flourishing in both sports, with ranked football and basketball teams simultaneously competing for Big Ten titles. There was a time, as Means noted, when Ohio State lived in that dual-threat world — a football juggernaut complemented by a top-30 basketball outfit. That equilibrium has evaporated.

So what should the standard be? Diebler, hired after the mid-season departure of Chris Holtmann, continues to preach championships. Athletic director Ross Bjork must decide whether those expectations remain realistic or whether steady tournament qualification and the occasional Sweet 16 is an acceptable return on investment.

Krajisnik contends the issue isn’t simply money. “I don’t think Ohio State’s allocation of resources is really even like anything I would debate… it’s what you do with the resources.” Which inevitably leads to the next uncomfortable query: is Diebler squeezing maximum value from the roster, or would a different voice coax more from the same pot?

For now, the Buckeyes control their own fate. A strong closing stretch would secure an NCAA bid, cool external pressure and buy the program another season of patience. Yet the philosophical dilemma will not disappear with a single March appearance. In an age where financial firepower often dictates final scores, Ohio State must decide whether basketball mediocrity is an acceptable cost of football supremacy — or whether history and brand demand a larger investment.

As the Buckeye Talk hosts concluded, there are no easy answers, only the stark arithmetic of modern college athletics: you get what you pay for, and right now Ohio State is paying like a program content to live on the bubble.