SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Nearly 2,000 miles of separation from home isn’t enough to shield Jake Diebler from the chaos of college athletics.
On the morning of August 1, the Ohio State men’s basketball coach was drinking a morning coffee just down the road from his team’s hotel. Tourists and guests filtered in and out, one from Maryland who took note of the Buckeyes coach. Diebler took a few sips and assessed the landscape. Later that day, Ohio State would practice, hold a youth basketball clinic and do some sightseeing as part of its exhibition trip, but first there was the reality of roster construction in 2026.
The Buckeyes had arrived on the island one day prior, and that's when news broke that Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the U.S. District Court
of Colorado had granted a preliminary injunction allowing all players from the 2022 class to be grandfathered into the NCAA’s new “five-for-five” eligibility model.
Just like that, all of last year’s four-year seniors became eligible for a fifth year with the start of the season barely three months away and with rosters mostly set. Ohio State already has a 14-man roster. Now the question looms: Will the Buckeyes look to bring in another veteran player?
In between sips of coffee, Diebler did not rule it out while also acknowledging the complexities of the situation.
“You’re always trying to find ways to position yourself when, like at Ohio State, you’re trying to win a championship,” he said. “You have an opportunity to improve that ability to do so, you’ve got to explore that with everything you’ve got. There’s a lot of layers that go into adding a player this time of year.”
When the NCAA announced its plans to move to a five-year eligibility model that eliminated waivers and redshirts, the intention was to apply that model starting with those players who had not yet exhausted their eligibility for the 2026-27 season. That set off a series of lawsuits filed by players who were seniors in 2025-26, who sought to be included.
Because the players' request for an injunction was granted, a whole new group of athletes is eligible to play in 2026-27, with most schools already boasting complete rosters and tapped-out name, image and likeness resources.
“It’s unfortunate that you’re working on building chemistry and building a team and now you have this, I guess we’ll call it an opportunity, to adjust your roster,” Diebler said. “The majority of our time, our focus is on this team and who we have and how we can help them be the best because I think we’ve got the pieces to position us to have a really good season. We’ve got to put those pieces together and that’s what we’re focused on right now.”
The new ruling would only impact two players who were on Ohio State’s roster last season: Bruce Thornton and Christoph Tilly. Thornton was the first pick in the second round of the NBA draft and signed a multiyear contract with Houston, and Tilly spent time with Oklahoma City during the NBA's Summer League but is currently without a team.
In April, Tilly entered the transfer portal in an effort to retain any eligibility he might eventually regain.
Diebler said his staff has been trying to stay abreast of the ever-evolving situation while keeping in communication with the school’s administration. It’s been a time-consuming endeavor.
“Our staff has done an unbelievable job of constantly gathering information, recruiting guys maybe we don’t have a spot but we’re still recruiting guys just in case you do,” he said. “The time you spend in that space is a lot, but we’re always going to be a program that’s going to outwork and out-prepare and right now you’ve got to do that in recruiting with a moving target, which makes it hard but that’s the world we’re in.”
When the Buckeyes play exhibition games August 2 and 3 in Puerto Rico, they will have 14 players in uniform. When they open the regular season against BYU in Salt Lake City on Nov. 2, who knows?
“Roster spots, NIL, that has to be lockstep with the administration,” Diebler said. “There’s ongoing conversations internally about the evaluating where the landscape is today on August whatever knowing that come Monday, Tuesday, next week, it may look different.”
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 The Columbus Dispatch: Could Ohio State men's basketball add to roster with rules change?
