Buckeyes to finish Texas A&M series, potentially start another home-and-home in 2024-25

COLUMBUS — Ohio State will complete its home-and-home series with Texas A&M this season, Buckeyes head coach Jake Diebler confirmed Monday.

“Coach Williams has got another good team, and he’s got a great, proven track record,” Diebler said. “It will be a really, really good early test for us on a true road game. So I’m excited about that.”

Buzz Williams’ Aggies squad took down Ohio State, 73-66, on Nov. 10 last year in the Schottenstein Center. That matchup took place during the first week of the Buckeyes’ season and drew a crowd of 12,704.

Texas A&M’s backcourt pairing of Wade Taylor IV and Tyrece Radford combined for 42 points, and the then-No. 15 Aggies overpowered Ohio State on the glass with a 45-35 rebounding advantage. Williams’ team, which finished the season No. 1 in KenPom offensive rebounding percentage, piled up 16 offensive boards, leading to 19 second-chance points.

Although the Aggies lost five straight games in February, at the time sliding to 6-9 in SEC competition, they still found their way into the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year by bouncing back with five wins in a row, including two in the SEC Tournament. And then, for the first time since 2018, Texas A&M reached the Round of 32, thanks to a decisive first-round win over Nebraska. The Aggies very nearly advanced to the Sweet 16, but 16 missed free throws plagued them in an overtime loss to top-seeded Houston.

Before last year’s meeting, Ohio State and Texas A&M had faced off only three times. The Buckeyes beat the Aggies in Columbus, 54-40, in 1947. Texas A&M, however, has now won the last three matchups, first defeating Ohio State, 72-69, in Columbus on Dec. 14, 1957 and then blowing the Buckeyes out, 70-47, in a neutral-site game in New York City on Nov. 23, 2007. That Madison Square Garden showdown was part of the NIT Preseason Tip-Off Championship.

Texas A&M is returning key pieces from last year’s NCAA Tournament team, including Taylor — the Aggies’ leading scorer in 2023-24 — forwards Henry Coleman III and Solomon Washington and high-volume 3-point-shooting guards Jace Carter and Hayden Hefner, plus guard Manny Obaseki, among others. Williams also brought in Nebraska guard CJ Wilcher, Minnesota forward Pharrel Payne and SMU guard Zhuric Phelps from the transfer portal.

Notably, Ohio State will kick off the 2024-25 season against Texas in Las Vegas for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Series. The game will take place on Nov. 4 in T-Mobile Arena, the home of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

It will be part of College Basketball’s Opening Night 2024, an event that will also feature a highly-anticipated women’s basketball showdown between defending national champion South Carolina and Michigan that same night in Vegas.

Neutral-site, non-conference games are becoming increasingly popular among power conference teams, Diebler explained Monday.

“Listen, scheduling, it’s hard right now,” he said. “Because we reached out to just really tons and tons of teams — who would be probably in the last few years considered the top-end teams in each respective power conference — to try and schedule. But a lot of teams are transitioning from home-and-homes to neutral-site games. And so it’s been a challenge certainly to fill out the schedule.

“But I think when it’s all said and done, you’re going to see, we’re going to have a tough non-conference schedule, certainly, which is exciting. But yeah, that part’s different now than it was even 2-3 years ago, where a lot of teams are fighting to get these neutral-site games.”

That said, Diebler believes Ohio State is close to finalizing another home-and-home series with a high-major team. He said the Buckeyes prefer to start that potential series at home this year.

“I would love, moving forward, to always be able to have another high-major opponent in our gym,” Diebler said. “I don’t know if it’s always going to be able to work out that way. But our intention is to do that.”

What about that Big Ten trip to California?

Back in May, the Big Ten revealed 2024-25 home and away league opponents for all 18 members. The conference now includes UCLA, USC, Washington and Oregon, but every league team will still play 20 Big Ten games this season.

The difference? Each conference member now plays only three Big Ten opponents both home and away in a given season.

Ohio State’s three home-and-home Big Ten opponents in 2024-25 are Indiana, Maryland and Nebraska. That means the Buckeyes will take on UCLA, USC, Washington and Oregon just once this season. They’re hosting Washington and Oregon but traveling to UCLA and USC.

The dates for those games have not been announced, but Diebler was asked Monday about other details concerning the future Big Ten trip to California.

“So we’re going to L.A., we know that,” Diebler said. “As far as how many days are in between each game, what the game before that trip or the game after that trip looks like, we don’t know that yet.

“I think the league, they’re really working hard to certainly have a competitive balance in all of that but [also to] find a way that helps the student-athletes first and foremost the most.”

Diebler said he expects to have more information on Ohio State’s travel situation later in the summer or early in the fall.