Eric Boggs
On Monday, Ohio State basketball announced the hiring of Talor Battle, a former Penn State player and assistant coach at Northwestern since 2021, for the fifth and final assistant coaching position this year.
“Talor has great experience in the Big Ten both as a player and a coach, and I’m excited to welcome him to the Buckeye family. He excels at player development, as shown by Northwestern’s success in recent seasons. He can recruit at a high level and knows what it takes to be successful in this conference. I’ve known Talor for quite a while, and I’m looking forward to working with him as we take the next step as a program.”
Jake Diebler in a Press Release
Battle played at Penn State from 2007 to 2011 before embarking on a seven-year professional career overseas in France, Germany, Sicily, Belgium, Israel, Hungary, and Slovenia. He is Penn State’s all-time leading scorer with 2,213 career points.
After his playing career, Battle started coaching in 2020 as an assistant at his alma mater before joining Northwestern in 2021. At Northwestern, he helped the team achieve its second and third NCAA Tournament berths in school history over the past two seasons.
As a former guard, Battle was instrumental in developing Northwestern’s star point guard Boo Buie, who became one of the Big Ten’s top players, finishing fourth in the conference in scoring (19 points per game) and fifth in assists (five per game) in 2023-24.
Battle also has ties to Ohio State alumni, having played for team Scarlet and Gray (now Carmen’s Crew) in The Basketball Tournament in 2018. Jon Diebler, OSU legend and Jake’s brother, was one of his teammates, recruited by former Buckeye star Evan Turner, a close friend.
Battle joins Joel Justus, Luke Simons, Jamall Walker, and Dave Dickerson as Diebler’s first group of assistant coaches.
