{"id":203408,"date":"2025-07-30T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/203408\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T17:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:03:07","slug":"heres-what-ohio-states-jake-diebler-thinks-of-ncaa-tournament-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/203408\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what Ohio State’s Jake Diebler thinks of NCAA Tournament expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Diebler is in favor of NCAA Tournament expansion, but it might not be for the reasons you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

Entering his second season as the Ohio State men\u2019s basketball coach, Diebler oversaw a team that essentially came up one win short of making the field of 68. Most national analysts said the Buckeyes finished 2024-25 as one of the first four teams left out,<\/a> marking a third straight season that saw them watching March Madness from home instead of participating.<\/p>\n

More Ohio State basketball: Ohio State basketball misses March Madness, won’t play in 2025 NCAA Tournament<\/a><\/p>\n

This summer, talk of expanding the tournament to 72 or perhaps 76 teams has increased among the sport\u2019s leadership. On July 24, CBS Sports published a story that expansion could happen \u201csometime this fall,\u201d but it\u2019s growing increasingly unlikely that any change will take place for the 2026 event.<\/p>\n

Should it ever take place, Diebler said he\u2019s in favor because it would increase the opportunities for players to experience what he termed \u201cthe best sporting event in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such an unbelievable experience that I think if you can create that experience for a few more kids, at the end of the day that\u2019s probably what I\u2019d (do),\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately, if you were like, you have to choose one or the other, I\u2019d say let\u2019s do it and let\u2019s provide the opportunity to be in the best sporting event in the world to a few more kids to experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expanding to 72 teams, Diebler said, would mean that roughly 60 more basketball players get to participate in March Madness.<\/p>\n

Ohio State likely would’ve made it last year with an expanded field<\/a>, and Diebler said he wants to be careful that whatever changes come, such a feat remains an accomplishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still needs to be earned, right?\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t have below .500 teams getting in the tournament and stuff like that, but I think there\u2019s an element of making sure that it\u2019s earned and that it\u2019s hard to earn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens, Diebler said he won\u2019t be clamoring for one outcome rather than the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a beautiful thing the way it is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was beautiful at 64, it still stayed beautiful at 68. I don\u2019t know what the right number is. I would be for (expansion), ultimately, but I\u2019m not one of those guys that\u2019s going to sit up here and beat a drum of, \u2018We need reform.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In a July 29 update published to ESPN, bracketologist Joe Lunardi projects the Buckeyes as a No. 6 seed in the 68-team 2026 NCAA Tournament.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social<\/a> or on Twitter at @AdamJardy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get more Ohio State basketball news by listening to our podcasts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Diebler is in favor of NCAA Tournament expansion, but it might not be for the reasons you\u2019d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[12038,2126,7,657,12040,5746,19523,319,217,325,2669,2672,2127,130,133,2125,12039,131,318,354,231,772,19528,428,1544,67,16,21499,9449,18827,2670,61,134,132,66,83,1052,17,55,2128,424,2196],"class_list":{"0":"post-203408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-12038","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-big","12":"tag-big-10-hub","13":"tag-buckeyes","14":"tag-buzz","15":"tag-college","16":"tag-college-basketball","17":"tag-college-sports","18":"tag-dot","19":"tag-dot-optimized","20":"tag-enabled","21":"tag-espn","22":"tag-espn-inc","23":"tag-highlights","24":"tag-hub","25":"tag-inc","26":"tag-mens","27":"tag-mens-college-basketball","28":"tag-ncaa","29":"tag-ncaa-basketball","30":"tag-ncaa-buzz","31":"tag-ncaa-mens-basketball-tournament","32":"tag-ncaab","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-ohio","35":"tag-ohio-st-buckeyes-mens-basketball","36":"tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","37":"tag-ohio-state-university-buckeyes-mens-basketball","38":"tag-optimized","39":"tag-overall","40":"tag-overall-positive","41":"tag-positive","42":"tag-sports","43":"tag-sports-news","44":"tag-st","45":"tag-state","46":"tag-story","47":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","48":"tag-tournament","49":"tag-university"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}