The Ohio State basketball team’s season ended with a dud after they lost to Iowa in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. They ended up not getting selected for the NCAA Tournament because of how poorly they finished the season. The Buckeyes also declined an invitation to the Crown, ending their 2024 season.

Now that the season is over, the Ohio State Buckeyes need to figure out how to improve their roster for next year so that they don’t miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year. The first step is to use the transfer portal to improve the roster as quickly as possible.

Now that the season is over, that also means that Buckeyes can start entering the transfer portal, too. While the portal doesn’t officially open for a bout a week, they can declare their intentions to enter it. That’s exactly what one player has decided to do already.

The Ohio State basketball program loses a player to the transfer portal

Ohio State has lost center Austin Parks to the transfer portal. He has decided to continue his collegiate career elsewhere. Parks is a sophomore who only played in nine games this season. He was hoping to get more playing time this season, but that didn’t end up manifesting.

Parks will now go somewhere else so that he can finish out his college basketball career. It’s unclear right now what kind of school he might end up at. He is a raw prospect that hasn’t gotten a lot of minutes on the court to show what he can do.

With how bad the center position was at Ohio State, it was a little surprising to not see him get more playing time. Parks is from St. Mary’s, Ohio and is a local kid. He clearly loved being a Buckeye, but he wants to see if he can earn playing time somewhere else.

It’s even more clear that Jake Diebler needs to address the center position in the transfer portal. He has to be better at identifying talent in the portal, unlike what happened last year.