On Wednesday, the Ohio State Buckeyes decided to part ways with men’s basketball head coach Chris Holtmann amid a second consecutive disappointing season. And in the team’s first game under interim head coach Jake Diebler, the Buckeyes pulled off an absolutely stunning victory.
In Diebler’s first game leading the team, the Ohio State Buckeyes faced off against the No. 2-ranked Purdue Boilermakers, who had lost just two games the entire season. But in a pretty shocking turn of events, Ohio State prevailed.
The Buckeyes led throughout most of the game and ultimately pulled off a 73-69 victory over the Boilermakers on Sunday afternoon, leading to their fans storming the court in celebration.
It was a massive and shocking win for Diebler in his head coaching debut, and he had a lot to say about it after the game.
“What a resilient group,” Diebler said after the game according to ESPN. “We have some great young men in there who came together at a high these last few days in a way that I don’t know if any of us fully anticipated that they could get to in a short amount of time.”
According to ESPN, Diebler became just the second head coach since 1996-97 to beat a top-10 team in their Division I coaching debut. We’ll have to see if he can keep this momentum going for the Buckeyes.
[ESPN]
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