Ohio State men's basketball loses transfer forward Brandon Noel to injury

The Buckeyes have lost just four games all season by a combined total of 13 points.

And while they are competing to be one of the top teams in the Big Ten and beyond, they've been dealt a bad hand in the injury bug.

On Tuesday, Jan. 6, the Ohio State men's basketball team found out that they would be without the team's leading scorer off the bench, forward Brandon Noel, for the foreseeable future due to a foot injury. Noel suffered the injury in the Buckeyes' loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, 72-69, dropping the team to a 10-4 overall record.

Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler broke the news to the media on his radio show, stating he would be out, "Probably for an extended period of time."

Since transferring to Ohio State, Noel's been a critical piece of the rotation.

Across 14 games played, he's averaged 7.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists a game with shooting splits of 64.3% from the field and 21.4% from beyond the arc. He's also been fairly consistent at the line, hitting 75% of his shots from the charity stripe, a major jump from his previous numbers at Wright State.

His best game wearing the scarlet and grey came in an 86-82 victory over Northwestern, where he knocked down 13-of-14 two-pointers he attempted for 29 total points. He also tacked on seven rebounds, two of which were offensive.

In just his short amount of time in Columbus, he's been really impactful.

He did start 10 games, but due to the emergence of freshman forward Amare Bynum, Diebler realized that the best rotation would be to have Noel provide the team with a spark off the bench. Now, without him, the Buckeyes will have to turn to sophomore center Ivan Njegovan to give relief to the four and five spots on the court.

Njegovan, at 7-foot-1, 250 pounds, is averaging 3.1 points and 2.6 assists a night on 10 games. Without Noel, he'll take on a bigger role and have a chance to bump those numbers up.

Prior to becoming a Buckeye, Noel had spent the previous five seasons as a member of the Raiders.

While there, he was a standout, garnering two All-Horizon honors and being named the 2022-23 Horizon Rookie of the Year. His best season of play came back in the 2024-25 campaign, where he contributed 19.0 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists. Each statistical category was career-highs for him.

The hope is that Noel can return to the court as the season approaches its tail end and the Buckeyes look for a conference, and national, tournament push.