Mark Titus Ohio State fans Credit: Mostly Hoops with Mark Titus
By Matt Yoder on

Ohio State Buckeyes fans are used to the call coming from inside the house. But this time it’s not Kirk Herbstreit criticizing the fanbase, it’s former basketball player Mark Titus.

Titus was a player at Ohio State during the Thad Matta era as a walk-on from 2006-2010. However, he became famous from starting his Club Trillion blog where he poked fun at his propensity for garbage time action where he would put up zeroes in all of the stat columns. That fame, notoriety, and popularity from Ohio State fans and beyond has led him to a sustained media career where he has worked with Grantland, The Ringer, Fox Sports, and now Barstool Sports.

But now Titus is turning against his own fans after Ohio State lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in heartbreaking fashion to TCU. The Buckeyes, led by all-time leading scorer Bruce Thornton, were making their first March Madness appearance since 2022. The loss to TCU ensured that the program that has 11 Final Four appearances and one national championship won’t see the second weekend for the thirteenth consecutive year.

But much like Herbstreit in his criticism of Ohio State football fans, Mark Titus also thinks Buckeye basketball fans are too demanding and have unrealistic expectations. In particular, he is angry at football fans who only pay attention to the basketball team after football season has ended and haven’t followed the team consistently.

However, instead of just talking about the “lunatic fringe” of Ohio State fans as Herbstreit has done for years, Titus went one step further by calling his fanbase the worst fans in the world on his podcast.

“We have the worst fans in the world, Ohio State,” Titus said. “Ohio State basketball fans are the worst fans in the world. They’re the worst, literally the worst. Because they watch football all year. They don’t even pay attention to the basketball program. They parachute in around late January or early February, they look up the rankings and if we’re not ranked in the Top 10 they’re just like ‘everything sucks, fire everybody, this is terrible.’ They have no idea what they’re talking about. They don’t even know the names of the G–damn players. And they bitch like they want us to be a Top 10 program, which I do too.”

Titus defended Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler from criticism, especially over the final play that saw Thornton unable to do more than throw up a half-court heave with time running out on the clock. Diebler was promoted from his assistant coaching job after Chris Holtmann was fired following six disappointing seasons in charge. Diebler’s job hasn’t been made easier by the fact that John Calipari reached out to the Buckeyes interested in the position, but Ohio State chose to go down an easier and cheaper path.

“He drew up a play,” Titus declared. “This is college basketball. You have a bunch of guys that are young that aren’t put in these high pressure situations. This happens all the time. And our dumb@$$ f—ing fans just come in and they’re just like, ‘I don’t know who that guy is, who’s #1 for our team, I kind of like this guy. We should give the ball to #1.’ Where have you been all season? What is this? I can’t stand it, dude. It drives me crazy. I’m actually getting pissed off about it. And that’s not even a rant to defend Jake, it’s a rant to like, if you care about the program, care about the program tomorrow.”

Mark Titus then laid the blame for the current situation in Columbus at the feet of everyone involved from the fans to the lack of NIL investment and university support for the basketball program.

“You have to invest. You have to invest money. We don’t have any f—ing money in the basketball program. We don’t have any fan support in the basketball program. It’s absurd, but you still have the expectation like we should be Duke or Kansas or whatever. Pisses me off,” Titus concluded.

But then he had one more parting shot at the fanbase.

“I think we have the worst fans in basketball because at least the obnoxious Kentucky fans, they’re putting their money where their mouth is. They’re putting their passion, they show up. You want to point at Kentucky fans and be like, ‘you guys are insane you want to fire a coach after one year because he doesn’t make the Sweet 16. That’s insane.’ Yea, maybe it is insane, but at least that’s what they live and breathe year round. Ohio State basketball fans carry themselves that way but don’t actually live and breathe it. And it pisses me off. You have to find the balance. The expectation and the investment aren’t aligned and that’s absurd.”

It’s true that the Ohio State basketball program is at a modern-day low in performance and vibes. Attendance struggled mightily this season, although Senior day to see Thornton break the scoring mark was a sellout. But you can see where both Titus and Ohio State fans are coming from. It’s probably hard for any basketball player at a football school to feel like you can truly connect in the same way with a fanbase, especially one where football is so dominant over everything as it is in Columbus.

However, the biggest and most successful programs have proven that you can compete in football and basketball. Ohio State has proven that themselves during the Matta era when they were making Final Fours and BCS title games in the same season (including one where they ironically lost to Florida in both). Maybe that’s harder for programs to accomplish in the NIL era, but that doesn’t mean that fans shouldn’t have high expectations given the resources at OSU’s disposal and their history as a program. We’re not just talking about a mid-tier power conference basketball school, we’re talking about one with real pedigree from John Havlicek to Jim Jackson to Greg Oden.

However, Buckeye fans haven’t tasted success like that in well over a decade and maybe that’s why they are growing so restless. And it’s probably not going to help their feeling towards the program to be ripped to shreds by one of their own once again.

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