Ohio State men’s basketball coach Jake Diebler was about three minutes into a discussion about his team’s first-round NCAA Tournament opponent when the news broke.
Thad Matta, the all-time winningest coach in Buckeyes history, was retiring from the profession after spending the last four years leading Butler. During his 21-year career as a head coach, Matta made the most noise at Ohio State, where he went 337-123 in 13 seasons from 2004-2017.
He also hired Diebler as video coordinator in 2013 after having also coached his younger brother, Jon, from 2007 to 2011. Jake Diebler took the job after having spent the prior two years as an assistant at his alma mater, Valparaiso.
So, in between answering questions about TCU’s on-ball pressure and the importance of rebounding well in a March 19 first-round men’s March Madness game, Jake Diebler was suddenly hit with the realization that a coach he considers a mentor and close friend would no longer be on the sidelines.
“Wow,” he said, taking a second to process the news.
The Schottenstein Center practice gym Diebler stood in did not exist when Matta was hired from Xavier in 2004 and inherited a program that would face a 2005 postseason ban for infractions committed under previous coach Jim O’Brien. From there, Matta took the Buckeyes to nine NCAA Tournaments in 10 years, won five Big Ten regular-season titles and four conference tournament championships and made the 2007 national title game.
“It’s not great for college basketball, because he’s one of the good guys,” Jake Diebler said. “He always did it the right way. He’s a hall-of-famer and won a ton, and we need to celebrate him in this program and his career.”
Matta’s name hangs from the rafters inside the Schottenstein Center alongside Fred Taylor’s, who coached the Buckeyes to their only national title in 1960. After being fired following the 2016-17 season, Matta returned to Columbus barely 18 months later to see his name go up in the rafters.
“I’ve begged Thad to come back here, even offered him like a ‘Thad Matta Bobblehead Night’ to get him to come back and maybe do an exhibition game or something just so we can honor him,” Diebler said. “He’s played a pivotal part in the history of this program, and he and his career and his family deserve to be honored for that. Maybe now I can pick his brain even more now that he won’t have as much going on.”
Jake Diebler said that he appreciated how Matta had helped his younger brother through some early struggles at Ohio State. Although Jon Diebler would go on to become the program’s all-time leading 3-point shooter, his freshman year was tough, and Jake Diebler said the Ohio State coach was critical in helping him settle in and blossom.
When Matta went back to Butler in 2022, he hired Jon as the program’s director of recruiting and eventually promoted him to a full-time assistant coach.
“He’s meant so much (to our family),” Jake Diebler said. “There was a point in time where Jon was like, ‘Am I not built for this?’ Thad basically told him, ‘Yes, you are. Get back to work.’ He did and went on to have a great career. What Thad’s meant to us, certainly for Jon and solidifying his place in Ohio State and a family he’ll always have long after he’s done coaching. This program, this place means a lot for Jon personally and our family.
“For me to be able to work for him and be able to learn and see things in a different way, special. Our family [is] forever appreciative of what Thad and his family have done for us and how they’ve helped us. I consider myself part of his coaching tree.”
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Thad Matta’s retirement from coaching at Butler is ‘not great for college basketball’
Reporting by Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
