Jake Diebler updates Jamison Battle's status ahead of Nebraska game

Jamison Battle missed his first start of the season in the last game for Ohio State with an ankle injury. Now, ahead of their matchup with Nebraska this evening, Jake Diebler has the latest on the status of the Buckeye forward.

Diebler spoke about Battle during a press conference on Wednesday. He said that the senior has been taking the necessary steps but that the team wouldn’t know if he’d be available against the Cornhuskers until closer to tip-off tonight.

“Yeah, I think Jamison is progressing well,” said Diebler. “We’ll see as it gets a little closer.”

With that, Diebler took a moment to applaud Battle for all that he has put into his rehab over the past week. He has been attached at the hip with the team’s athletic trainer and wouldn’t have even missed a game because of that had the turnaround between their two games last week not been so tight.

“He deserves a ton of credit. You guys didn’t get to see it. We stayed on the road. He worked so hard to try to come back. It was impressive,” said Diebler. “I mean he and our trainer, Tony, who has done an unbelievable job? Like, they were like best friends, inseparable. It seemed like if you saw one, the other was right there for those 48 hours.”

“It just felt like, for Michigan State, we just didn’t have quite enough time,” Diebler said.

After two seasons at George Washington and Minnesota, Battle has appeared in 27 games for the Buckeyes in his fifth year. In those outings, he is averaging 14.2 points and 5.1 rebounds in just over 30 minutes per game. Both are good for second-best on the team in both categories. He’s also shooting 46.2% from the field and a career-best at 44% from three.

We’ll have to see how Battle progresses leading into the tip between Ohio State and Nebraska at 6:30 p.m. EST on FS1 tonight. However, if his head coach provided any hint, Diebler isn’t closing the door on a return for Battle this evening against the ‘Huskers.

“I don’t want to anticipate any issues there,” said Diebler.

More on Battle’s ankle injury from the past week

An ankle injury sidelined Jamison Battle for the Buckeye’s win at Michigan State this past Sunday – except it didn’t take him out of the game completely.

“I felt Jamo was still out there, really,” Dale Bonner said postgame. “He was on the bench talking to everybody. Only difference was, he wasn’t on the floor. He still showed great leadership.”

Diebler reinforced what Bonner noted postgame. Battle’s voice, especially in timeouts, was “incredible”.

“He was so engaged,” Diebler said on 97.1 The Fan. “Had some really valuable things he said. I was really impressed with just how locked in he was to our team being successful — and him finding a way to have an impact when he couldn’t be on the court. He spent so much time with our trainer in between games trying to get ready and wanting to be out here. But for him to stay engaged? It was impressive.”

Diebler added on this on th 97.1 The Fan radio show on Monday regarding the choice to sit Battle versus the Spartans

“We wanted to do what was best for him. We trusted him to evaluate how well he could play out there and, after doing some testing and things, it just didn’t seem like he was going to really be able to have the impact that he probably wanted to have,” said Diebler. “At that point, we needed to look out for him. No one anticipates this to be a long-term thing. This set him up to be successful for the rest of the season.”