The past 10 years have been a bit of a down decade for the Ohio State Buckeyes’ men’s basketball program, and last season was rough for fans and the program’s backers at Ohio sports betting sites. Partway through the past season, Jake Diebler took over as interim coach of a program that last reached the Elite Eight in 2013 and missed the field entirely after going 9-11 in conference play last season. Diebler has earned the full-time job after replacing Chris Holtmann, who was fired in February.
But despite relatively leaner times, there have been plenty of noteworthy players to come through Columbus of late for basketball, from NBA All-Star D’Angelo Russell to college stars like Bruce Thornton, Keita Bates-Diop, E.J. Liddell and Kaleb Wesson. Here is our list:
Ohio State Basketball Team of the Decade
BetOhio.com, which offers the best Ohio sportsbook promos, used SportsReference.com to develop the above list for the Ohio State men’s basketball team of the decade from 2014-15 to 2023-24. To qualify, players must have been with the Buckeyes during this time. The numbers are based on combination of Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Win Shares during the years listed at OSU.
Which Ohio State Players Made All-Decade?
The least surprising member of the OSU all-decade team was Russell, who posted a two-year total combined PER plus WS (according to sports-reference.com/cbb) of 33.4 in 2014-15. That ranks third out of the five members of the Buckeyes list by that metric.
The overall leader in terms of PER and WS totals combined was Liddell, who posted a college career total 39.2 between 2019 and 2022. The forward made the All-Big Ten coaches first team in 2021 and 2022 to go with the media’s All-Big Ten in 2022.
Throw in Wesson (37.9 PER + WS between 2017 and 2020), Bates-Diop (34.5 from 2014-18) and Thornton (26.7 from 2022-24) and you have the full list of Buckeyes on the school’s all-decade team.
The Buckeyes have odds ranging from +5500 to +6000 at various Ohio sports betting apps to win next season’s national title.
All five made various parts of the All-Big Ten team during their respective runs in Columbus. Russell was the only one of the five so far that has gone on to have a long career in the NBA. The 28-year-old has posted 24.6 win shares across 571 NBA games between 2015-16 and 2023-24.
Still, each of the five members of the Ohio State MBB all-decade team made a name for themselves donning the scarlet and gray over the years. This has made worthy inductees into Buckeye men’s basketball lore.
Russell’s Lakers won their play-in game on Tuesday, 110-106 over the New Orleans Pelicans, to qualify for the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference. They have +2900 odds at FanDuel Sportsbook Ohio to win the 2024 NBA championship.
USA Today photo by Geoff Burke
