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Ohio State Ousts No. 2 Purdue Five Days After Firing Head Coach

Interim head coach Jake Diebler secured his first win in the position.

Madison Williams

Ohio State Ousts No. 2 Purdue Five Days After Firing Head Coach
Ohio State Ousts No. 2 Purdue Five Days After Firing Head Coach /
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Ohio State took down No. 2 Purdue 73–69 on Sunday after leading the majority of the second half.

The massive Big Ten upset came just five days after the Buckeyes fired coach Chris Holtmann as the team started the season 14–11. Holtmann had led Ohio State since the beginning of the 2017–18 season. The Buckeyes never made it past the second round of the NCAA tournament under Holtmann’s leadership.

Sunday marked interim coach Jake Diebler’s first game in this position, making him 1-0 with an extremely impressive debut victory.

The Buckeyes crowd was electric and stormed the court at The Schottenstein Center following the upset.

The Boilermakers were on a nine-game winning streak heading into Sunday’s matchup. Their last loss came over a month ago on Jan. 9 vs. another Big Ten opponent, Nebraska. Purdue was ranked No. 1 for four weeks leading up to that loss. The team’s held the No. 2 spot since then.

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Madison Williams
MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.

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