Langhurst, Diebler to meet again — as college assistants

INDIANAPOLIS — Call it a Northern Ohio League reunion of sorts. It can also be called a reunion of two of the greatest players in Ohio high school basketball history, and from one of the greatest high school tournament games ever played. On the surface, there is nothing special about Merrimack College visiting Butler University in an NCAA Division I men's basketball game at 7 p.m. Friday night. But a glance on the bench for both the Warriors and Bulldogs will show two familiar faces to the area. In his first year as an assistant head coach for Merrimack is Jimmy Langhurst, a 2006 Willard graduate. For Butler, Jon Diebler, a 2007 Upper Sandusky graduate, enters his third season as an assistant for former Ohio State head coach Thad Matta. In high school, Langhurst scored 2,199 career points at Willard while leading the Crimson Flashes to three district championships, one regional runners-up and two NOL titles from 2003-06. He remains among the top 35 in career points scored in OHSAA history. Meanwhile, Diebler was Ohio's Mr. Basketball in 2007. He scored 77 points in a game at Tiffin Columbian during his senior year, and averaged 41.2 points per game that season on his way to Ohio's all-time leading scoring mark of 3,208 points. The Rams won the Div. II state title in 2005 with Diebler, and were state runners-up in 2007. In between that, he and Langhurst locked up in an all-time classic. Facing off for a third time in the 2005-06 season, the Rams and Flashes met inside a sold out Kates Gymnasium on the campus of Ashland University for a Div. II district championship. Both Langhurst and Diebler were the Northwest District co-Players of the Year that season. Each player then proceeded to score 55 points each in the game, won by the Flashes in a 101-98 thriller in just 32 minutes of regulation. After high school, Langhurst went to Div. I Robert Morris University. He was a part of three 20-win seasons, two NCAA tournament appearances and one NIT appearance at the school near Pittsburgh. An injury left him just short of 1,000 career points. Langhurst went on to play professionally in the British Basketball League for the Sheffield Sharks, leading the team and ranking sixth in league scoring after averaging 19.2 points per game. He then got into coaching, starting with a stop at Indiana University of Pennsylvania during the 2014-15 season. The next three years were spent as an assistant at Div. II Le Moyne College in Syracuse. Langhurst then spent four seasons back at RMU as the director of operations. The Colonials won the Northeast Conference championship in 2020, earning a bid to the NCAA tournament before it was canceled. Over the past two seasons, Langhurst was an assistant coach at Stonehill College in Eaton, Mass. He then made the shift to Merrimack, which is also in the Northeast Conference with Stonehill, prior to this season. Diebler has been on Thad Matta's staff since the veteran coach returned to Butler in 2022-23. The Bulldogs reached the NIT last season. After retiring as a player, Diebler started his coaching career with the Charlotte Hornets, serving in a video/basketball operations position during the 2021-22 season. Diebler played for Matta from 2007-11 before being drafted by the Portland Trailblazers in the second round of the 2011 NBA Draft. He then embarked on a professional playing career over the next decade with stops in Greece, Turkey, and Israel. Diebler is one of the most prolific scorers and shooters in Ohio State history. His 374 career three-pointers are the most in program history, and second in Big Ten history. Diebler's 1,536 points are No. 15 in the Buckeyes' record book entering this season. Diebler shot 41.6 percent from three-point range for his career, including a 50.2-percent mark as a senior, the best in Ohio State history.