Ohio State has completed their coaching staff, announcing yesterday that Jake Diebler has hired former Penn State standout player and assistant Talor Battle.
On Monday morning, it was announced that Jake Diebler has made his final assistant coach hire for the 2024-25 season. Talor Battle is very familiar with the Big Ten as he has spent his whole playing and coaching career in the conference. Battle played at Penn State and is currently the All-Time Scoring Leader in Nittany Lion history.
Help us welcome another member of the staff to Buckeye Nation‼️@JakeDiebler has announced the hiring of Assistant Coach Talor Battle. Battle joins the program having coached the last 4️⃣ years in the Big Ten, previously at Northwestern & Penn State.
📝 https://t.co/w77ClmOTMC pic.twitter.com/55XYkkUfyU
— Ohio State Hoops 🌰 (@OhioStateHoops) June 3, 2024
After his college career, Battle went on to play seven seasons overseas in countries such as France, Italy, Hungary, Israel, and Germany. When his playing days were over, he shifted to coaching where he was hired by former Penn State, and now Florida Gulf Coast head coach Pat Chambers. After Chambers was relieved of his duties in 2021, Battle was hired by Chris Collins of Northwestern where he has coached for the last three seasons.
Ohio State hires away Northwestern assistant coach Talor Battle, the brother of Boo Buie.
Tough loss for Collins and the Wildcats who have been stellar at developing guards with Battle in the building these past three seasons https://t.co/T9MYy8lxZs
— Matthew Shelton (@M_Shelton33) June 3, 2024
In his time with the Wildcats, he has been a part of some of the best seasons in program history, where the Wildcats have been to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments. Battle has been a big part of the development of guards Chase Audige and Boo Buie who both went on to be some of the best players to ever put on a Northwestern jersey. Audige is currently on the Chicago Bulls and plays for their G League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls. Buie, who is the brother of Battle, has declared for the NBA Draft and will be waiting to hear his name called during this month’s draft.
Fun fact is that Battle has experience playing for the Buckeyes (Kind of), as he was part of the 2018 Carmen’s Crew team who played in a $1 million dollar prize pool tournament called The Basketball Tournament (TBT).
Talor Battle has been rocking the scarlet and gray since 2018 with @CarmensCrew pic.twitter.com/GYCu45qdZj https://t.co/NkaidvhHIi
— The Ohio State Hoops Insider (@OSUHoopsInsider) June 3, 2024
Battle will help when it comes to the Buckeye’s backcourt development as both Bruce Thornton and Meechie Johnson have NBA aspirations. Battle is known to have great relationships with his players which fits perfectly with the culture Jake Diebler is building this offseason.
AJ is currently a senior at Teays Valley High School and plans to attend college next year. He has been a sports fan and Ohio State fan since he was a kid, and has been covering sports since 2020. He was a student manager for his Boy’s Basketball team for two seasons where the team won back to back league championships. AJ runs his own podcast called Just Talkin Sports, where he interviews athletes from all sports. He has over 1,800 plays on Spotify and 300 followers on Instagram. AJ plans to study Sport Management and minor in Journalism while also becoming a student manager for his selected college.