Why the Ohio State basketball team can’t hire Jon Diebler

When Jake Diebler became the head coach of the Ohio State basketball program, it was expected that he would hire his brother. Jon Diebler is a big part of Ohio State. He was a three-point sniper for the Buckeyes in the late 2000s. Not only that, he is the all-time three-point leader in Ohio State history. Hiring him makes a lot of sense.

Diebler is currently on Thad Matta’s staff at Butler. He’s not a full-time assistant coach, which is part of the problem. Because he isn’t a full-time assistant coach, the Buckeyes can’t hire him. How does that make sense? Let me take you down an obscure Ohio law that will keep the brothers from being on the same staff, at least for now.

Nepotism law keeps Ohio State basketball team from hiring Jon Diebler

According to Tony Gerdeman of Buckeye Huddle, an obscure nepotism law is keeping the Buckeyes from hiring Jon Diebler. In fact, it can be classified as a fourth-degree felony in the state of Ohio. Yet, the Buckeye football program has a few guys who are related to coaches on staff too. So how does this get resolved?

I could see Matta promoting Diebler to a full-time assistant role so that he could leave to go to the Ohio State basketball program. Matta knows how frustrated the Dieblers are about this situation. They both expected this to be taken care of without any sort of issue. Jake Diebler still has an open spot on his coaching staff in case this happens.

I didn’t even know that this law was a thing. Clearly, the Dieblers didn’t either. It will be interesting to see if this is something that can get resolved before the season starts. I doubt it. My guess is it’s at least another year before the Dieblers can be with each other on the same coaching staff.