Jake Diebler on Taison Chatman injury: 'Your heart breaks for him'

There are few incidents less brutal to a team than losing a teammate to a season-ending injury, especially before the year ever truly begins. That’s the case up at Ohio State, though, with Taison Chatman, a sophomore guard for the Buckeyes, tearing his ACL earlier this week.

Jake Diebler addressed the injury and the loss of Chatman to open his press conference on Thursday. All he did was express their ache that he will now miss all of next season in Columbus. That’s certainly so considering he’s a player that also missed time last year as well.

“First and foremost, just, your heart breaks for him because he didn’t get to have the type of year last year that he wanted, that we certainly wanted for him,” said Diebler.

However, if there is any optimistic take from this, Diebler noted that this knee injury is unrelated to the one that he had a procedure on before tip off last season that caused him to miss some of the start of the year. That leads them to believe that his recovery can be a straightforward and successful one.

“There’s some encouraging, encouraging stuff from the standpoint that this injury, although the same knee, was not related kind of to what he had gone through before. So it wasn’t like a – you know, I’m no doctor, certainly. But just there weren’t complications from that,” Diebler explained. “This just was kind of a random basketball injury. That, I think, speaks well to kind of what that recovery for him can look like. Although it’ll be a long one, it should be a good one.”

Diebler also made a separate statement on the injury in the press release that announced it on Wednesday.

Chatman appeared in 17 games as a freshman last season for Ohio State. In those outings, he averaged a point per game in a little over four minutes of time.

Chatman, a native of Minneapolis, joined the Buckeyes last year as a four-star prospect. He was the No. 38 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle. That’s according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He also rated as the No. 7 SG in the class and the top player out of Minnesota.

That made Chatman the top-ranked recruit in the No. 8 recruiting class for the program last year. That was a four-man collection with him alongside Devin Royal, Scotty Middleton (Seton Hall), and Austin Parks.

Chatman certainly could have played more of a role this upcoming season at Ohio State. Instead, he will begin another recovery with plenty of people trying to support him as best as they can at this time.

“Certainly just feel for him, his family,” said Diebler. “It’s hard but we have great support around him. Our guys have supported him really well through this.”