Story by
Behind Christoph Tilly, Ohio State takes down Ohio in exhibition win: takeaways
- Story by
- Behind Christoph Tilly, Ohio State takes down Ohio in exhibition win: takeaways
With the handshake line complete and the players getting ready to sing "Carmen Ohio," Jake Diebler grabbed the microphone. An announced crowd of 8,909 fans had just watched the Ohio State men's basketball team take care of Ohio in a 103-74 exhibition win to close out the preseason, and the team's head coach had something to say.
Before making a few brief remarks thanking the crowd for coming out and asking for their support this season, he turned the attention on Ohio coach Jeff Boals, who spent seven years as an assistant at Ohio State and was on staff when Diebler was first hired as video coordinator in 2013.
Advertisement
"Give it up for Ohio and one of our own, Jeff Boals," Diebler said as soon as he got the microphone.
Those vibes carried over into postgame, where the longtime friends shared a hug and then the spotlight as they conducted a joint press conference. Diebler opened by telling reporters how grateful he is for Boals allowing him to sit in his office while he was making recruiting calls and working for coach Thad Matta, even pointing out that Boals never let him pay for lunch.
Not missing a beat, Boals replied, "I need to get about 20 of those back now."
The friendly back and forth was the side story to what was otherwise the first real public look at the 2025-26 Buckeyes . Diebler played nine guys for at least 10 minutes, saw seven Buckeyes score in double figures and came away with more insight into what this year's team still needs to work on as a Nov. 3 season opener against IU Indy sits next on the calendar.
Advertisement
Rebounding and defense sit atop that list, but before Diebler could get to that, the two coaches told each other that they loved them before Boals implored him to keep talking.
"Keep it going – my (athletic director) is sitting over there," Boals said.
Here are five takeaways from the exhibition game:
Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Jake Diebler motions during the NCAA preseason exhibition game against the Ohio Bobcats at Value City Arena in Columbus on Oct. 26, 2025.
Ohio State's frontcourt looks drastically upgraded
Yes, it's just an exhibition game, and one played against a school from the Mid-American Conference. But think back to last year's lone public exhibition game for Ohio State, an 80-62 loss at Cincinnati, and it's clear already how much different this year's team looks down low.
Advertisement
The Buckeyes were without Aaron Bradshaw, who entered the year as the projected starting center, against the Bearcats and had to start Evan Mahaffey at power forward and Sean Stewart at center. Those two combined for nine points and two rebounds while each playing 19 minutes as Cincinnati out-rebounded Ohio State 38-21 and had a 36-16 advantage in points in the paint.
Against Ohio, Christoph Tilly and Brandon Noel combined for 32 points, eight assists, five rebounds, two steals and one turnover. Tilly was impactful across the stat sheet, scoring 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting, pulling down five rebounds and dishing out seven assists without a turnover in 22:49. Noel led the Buckeyes with 18 points and had an assist in 19:15.
Ohio State Buckeyes center Christoph Tilly (13) dunks during the NCAA preseason exhibition game against the Ohio Bobcats at Value City Arena in Columbus on Oct. 26, 2025.
Ohio State had some rebounding issues but still out-rebounded Ohio 40-31, and it outscored the Bobcats 50-24 in the paint.
Advertisement
"Really like his team," Boals said. "They were really hard to guard. Lot of different pieces, lot of skilled pieces. Don't want to say night and day different than last year, but night and day different from last year. Their size was a difference-maker."
It wasn't just the starters, either. Sophomore center Ivan Njegovan had 10 points, six rebounds and four assists (with three turnovers) in 15:20 while freshman forward Amare Bynum had 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and hit three 3-pointers in 21:36.
"You're seeing development," Diebler said. "I've been really impressed with Ivan, especially since July. Amare, we have high-level belief in. The most important thing that he displayed today was confidence, which sometimes young players don't do at a really high level. We've got high-level belief in both of those guys. They worked really hard and we think they're going to be really impactful."
Bynum, voted the team's best dunker , had one against the Bobcats.
Advertisement
Ohio State's Jake Diebler wanted to have some lineup chaos
Noel had six of Ohio State's first 10 points but was the first substitution of the game for the Buckeyes when Diebler removed him for Bynum with 15:54 left in the half. Ohio State's coach said he wanted to test the versatility of some of his players with the way he mixed and matched lineups.
"Going into this game, it was important for us to create a little chaos with our substitutions," he said. "We wanted to simulate maybe foul trouble where we've got some unique lineups. We wanted to try to get different looks. It wasn't anything other than I just picked those two guys to start that rotation"
The one thing the Buckeyes weren't able to do, Diebler said, was play the 7-foot Tilly alongside the 7-2 Njegovan.
Advertisement
"There wasn't any real intention other than starting to create some substitution patterns and a little bit of organized chaos from a lineup standpoint so our guys have got to communicate when they're subbing in and out," he said. "They've got to pay attention in timeouts. I subbed some guys late in timeouts. There was strategy behind that part so we're thinking about the right things and communicating when we're coming off the floor."
Jeff Boals asked to increase the foul limit
After halftime, both teams agreed to allow players to have up to six fouls instead of five. The announcement was made over the speakers shortly before things got underway with Ohio State ahead 52-37, and it was a Boals suggestion that Diebler agreed to.
"Blame it on me," Boals said. "We actually never got there, thankfully. These types of games you want to play your group of guys, at least I did, and I knew it would be a physical game. That was my ask."
Advertisement
Said Diebler: "It made sense. Great idea. We were fighting for experience for some of these guys and fighting for being able to play different lineups and stuff like that. When he said that, it made a lot of sense because you didn't want to limit your ability to do that when you didn't have to because it was an exhibition game."
Ohio State's offense looked efficient
The Buckeyes have consistently maintained roughly a 70% assist rate in practice throughout the offseason. Against Tennessee in a closed scrimmage Oct. 18, that number was still north of 50%. Against the Bobcats, Ohio State had 26 assists on 35 made field goals (74.3%).
Ohio State's season high for assists last season was 22. It finished the season 282nd nationally with an assist rate of 47.9%. Even with the caveat that this was an exhibition game against a team from a mid-major conference, the Buckeyes were sharing the ball at a significantly higher level than at any point last season.
Advertisement
"That's something, one through five we're all drawing attention, we're all moving off each other," Noel said. "That's a good chemistry thing. Learning how to play off these guys has been fun."
Ohio State Buckeyes forward Brandon Noel (14) maneuvers under Ohio Bobcats guard Ajay Sheldon (0) during the NCAA preseason exhibition game at Value City Arena in Columbus on Oct. 26, 2025.
That allowed the Buckeyes to shoot 60.3% for the game (35 for 58) while going 10 for 25 (40.0%) from 3-point range. Six different Ohio State players had multiple assists.
"That's the way we play," Tilly said. "It's not like we play a lot of one-on-one ball screens. It's more like, read the game and constant movement. If you cut, you will be open at some point and somebody will find you."
Advertisement
Ohio State scored on 47 of its 71 possessions (66.2%). It also turned the ball over 14 times, meaning the Buckeyes scored on 47 of the 57 possessions that ended with a shot. That's 82.4%.
Rebounding, defense need work for Ohio State
Asked what the Buckeyes still need to work on as the regular season approaches, both Tilly and Noel pointed to two areas.
"We learned a lot about ourselves," Tilly said. "We know that we've got to work more on our rebounding and our defense sometimes. We've done a pretty good job most of the time but you want to be as perfect as you can."
Advertisement
Noel said rebounding has been a primary focus for the Buckeyes. Last year's team finished 212th nationally in offensive rebounding rate and 224th in defensive rebounding rate. On Ohio's first possession of the game, the Bobcats grabbed two offensive rebounds to keep the possession alive before Noel ended the possession with a steal.
Ohio finished with 14 offensive rebounds, nabbing 32.6% of its 43 missed field goals.
Ohio State Buckeyes forward Devin Royal (21) dunks during the NCAA preseason exhibition game against the Ohio Bobcats at Value City Arena in Columbus on Oct. 26, 2025.
"We're in this place where we're rebounding well at times and maybe not rebounding as well as we can be (at other times), and that's where we're trying to keep striving and fighting for," Diebler said. "Part of it is we were getting ourselves in rotation a little too much and that's putting us at a disadvantage on the glass. We've got to shore up some of that defensively."
Advertisement
Noel said the Buckeyes have preached a defensive rebounding mindset of being the hammer and not the nail, going out to get a rebound instead of just hoping that it will come to them. Offensively, there are reads and keys for guys to crash the glass depending on the situation and where they are on the court when a shot goes up.
Diebler said defensive communication was an issue against Tennessee and that while the Buckeyes have made progress, they're clearly not there yet.
"That's been the last part of our chemistry translating to the court," he said. "I thought it did on offense really well. It's good that they're getting the message. We worked hard on it. We'll continue to work hard on it. I think we've got the personnel to be able to do it."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Here are five takeaways from Ohio State's exhibition win against Ohio
