Ohio State men’s basketball fan Mike Knapp shows off some of his collection
Ohio State men’s basketball fan Mike Knapp shows off some of his extensive collection of Buckeyes memorabilia.
Name: Mike Knapp
Hometown/residence: Wellington, Ohio
Team: Ohio State men’s basketball
Years of fandom: For Knapp, it began when he was roughly 5 years old and his uncle brought him to visit his cousin at Ohio State. More than 40 years later, Knapp still has souvenirs from that trip.
How it started: A die-hard fan of Ohio State sports, Knapp inherited a collection of game programs and ticket stubs when the grandmother of a close friend passed away. As he began going through the assortment of memorabilia, Knapp saw that there were a few missing parts.
“I was trying to complete her collection because some tickets were missing, so I’d go on eBay and get that so now I have the entire 1993-94 season,” he said. “Now I’m missing two tickets from the 89-90 season, so I go search for them, and it snowballed from there.”
How it’s going: Knapp boasts a big enough collection of Ohio State men’s basketball memorabilia to open his own museum should he so choose. Within the last year, he’s added a Lima (Ohio) Central Catholic yearbook from 1952 that features an autograph of alumnus Cleo Vaughn, who played at Ohio State from 1953-54, a 12-page term paper written by Buckeyes all-time leading scorer Dennis Hopson while in college, a 1999 Final Four watch given to players and coaches from Rawlings and a binder featuring Buckeyes coach Thad Matta’s 2006-07 practice schedule.
He has hundreds of autographs, pieces of game-worn apparel, programs at ticket stubs.
Has it caused you to miss any major life events? Thanksgiving with family has often been a sacrifice as Knapp has gone as far as Maui to watch the Buckeyes in early-season tournaments, but there was a road game in 2011 that might have delayed a birthday party. Knapp was inside the Bryce Jordan Center to see Jon Diebler hit a program-record 10 3-pointers at Penn State on March 1, 2011, which meant the family had to delay a party for his daughter, whose third birthday was March 3.
Most memorable moment as a fan of Ohio State men’s basketball (and why)? Like a coach, Knapp said some of the program’s biggest losses stick with him as much as the wins. Case in point: Knapp and several friends had planned a bachelor party in New Orleans for the same weekend as the 2012 Final Four. Ohio State made it, drawing a national semifinal matchup with Kansas, but the Jayhawks prevailed 64-62.
“We walk out of the Superdome and all my buddies are like, ‘We’re going to party on Bourbon Street,’ and I’m like, devastated, because the Buckeyes lost,” Knapp said. “It was a complete buzzkill, so all my buddies went out on Bourbon Street that night and I went back to the hotel and sulked.”
There are positive memories, obviously. Knapp went to Madison Square Garden in 2013 and saw the No. 3 Buckeyes rally from an eight-point deficit with about two minutes left to beat Notre Dame. In 2012, he was in Welsh-Ryan Arena to see Jared Sullinger’s game-winning, banked-in shot to push Ohio State past Northwestern and keep his team’s Big Ten title hopes alive.
Most forgettable moment as a fan of Ohio State men’s basketball (and why)? This was a quick answer from Knapp, who can hardly get the words out of his mouth fast enough.
“The 2011 Kentucky game,” he said. “Like, I will never get over that. It’s not even close. I can not get over it. I feel like I could write a book on that game. That’s easily my No. 1 sports loss ever.”
As a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Ohio State drew a matchup with an underseeded Kentucky team in the Sweet 16 in Newark, New Jersey. Brandon Knight’s jumper over the outstretched arms of Aaron Craft lifted No. 4 seed Kentucky past the Buckeyes in a loss that, like Knapp, Matta has said he will never get over.
“Absolutely devastated,” Knapp said. “I remember every second of that game.”
Any regrets? Knapp has never been in the building to see the men’s basketball team cut down nets to celebrate a championship. Had the Buckeyes continued an unprecedented Big Ten Tournament run in 2023 by winning a fourth straight game and clinching a berth in the title game, Knapp was going to drive from his daughter’s softball tournament to Chicago in the hopes of seeing history.
“I was there during the COVID year when they lost to Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament final, and it’s one of the reasons I went,” he said. “If they win, I have to be there. And then of course they lost. That’s a goal of mine: I need to see (head coach Jake) Diebler climb the ladder in person.”
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.