Ohio State center Austin Parks talks growth, hopes for sophomore year
Ohio State center Austin Parks talks at Buckeyes media day Oct. 8, 2024.
The first year of the Jake Diebler era will feature the most scholarship players in Ohio State men’s basketball history.
Technically, the Buckeyes will feature a full complement of 13 scholarship players for the 2024-25 season. Yet as Ohio State has built its roster for the year and sustained a summer injury to a projected rotation player, first-year coach Jake Diebler was able to add one more piece to the puzzle as a walk-on whose NIL compensation will cover the costs of enrolling at Ohio State.
Projected to finish eighth in the annual unofficial media poll conducted jointly by The Dispatch and The Indianapolis Star, the Buckeyes aim to return to the NCAA Tournament after missing out during each of the last two seasons. Ohio State went 22-14 last season as Diebler was named coach after having taking over midseason on an interim basis.
Sifting through a 16-man roster featuring nine new faces including two walk-ons requires effort, and The Dispatch has you covered. To get ready for the season, The Dispatch is once again rolling out its annual preseason power rankings. Each weekday leading into the Nov. 4 season opener against Texas in Las Vegas, we will count upward while projecting which players will have the biggest roles on the 2023-24 season. This isn’t just a measurement of who will lead the team in any particular statistical category, but a series of educated guesses on which players’ contributions will go the longest way toward where the Buckeyes finish.
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The series continues today with sophomore center Austin Parks.
No. 12 – Austin Parks
Position: Center
Eligibility: Second year (two remaining)
Height/weight: 6 feet 10 / 260 pounds
Jersey number: 25
Major: Sport industry
Background
A three-star prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, Parks committed to Ohio State during his junior season in a ceremony held inside his school’s auditorium. Ohio and Toledo were his first scholarship offers, but Ohio State, Indiana, West Virginia, Michigan State, Dayton and Illinois, among others, all followed suit in June after his sophomore season at St. Marys (Ohio) Memorial. He picked the Buckeyes ahead of Indiana and West Virginia, his two other finalists.
When he committed, Parks was ranked as the No. 18 center in the nation and the No. 6 prospect from Ohio according to 247Sports while ESPN ranked him as a four-star prospect. After helping the Roughriders reach the regional finals as a junior, Parks was sidelined by a knee injury suffered during AAU basketball that would cost him most of the summer. That led to a slide in the recruiting rankings, but he still averaged 22.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.8 blocks while earning first team All-State honors as a senior. He set 13 school records including career points (1,528), career rebounds (645), points in a game (45) and career wins (71).
Parks arrived at Ohio State as the No. 28 center in his class, the No. 5 player from Ohio and a three-star prospect in the 247Sports rankings. He was highly coveted by Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Indiana’s Mike Woodson out of high school, and keeping him in-state was a priority for the Buckeyes.
2023-24 season recap
Parks’ freshman season took a hit before the season began. As Ohio State got fall camp underway, Parks missed critical early time while battling back spasms, and that time out of the rotation set back his development and hindered his ability to crack the rotation.
Parks did not play in the charity exhibition game at Dayton but did participate in Ohio State’s “secret” scrimmage against Clemson in late October, logging roughly six minutes in the loss to the Tigers. His official debut didn’t arrive until the third game of the season when he saw 2:23 of playing time in a 76-52 win against Merrimack on Nov. 15. It started a stretch of six appearances in the next 10 games as the Buckeyes settled into a rotation of Felix Okpara as starting center and Zed Key as his primary backup.
“He’s really talented,” Key said of Parks in January. “He also has great footwork, great touch around the rim He’s a tough guard. He’s really strong. He gives us great looks and he’s coming along really well.”
His first career point came on a free throw during a 78-36 win against New Orleans on Dec. 21, but it would mark the last playing time Parks would see for more than a month and a half. The freshman was a healthy, unused substitute in 10 consecutive games before subbing in for 39 seconds of a 76-73 home loss to Indiana on Feb. 6.
He would make only two more appearances, but they were memorable. In 1:53 against No. 2 Purdue in the first game with Diebler as interim coach, Parks attempted the first shot of his career and connected in what would be a 73-69 win that set off a court storming at Value City Arena. Then on senior day, Parks logged 2:46 in an 84-61 win against Michigan.
Parks’ freshman season ended with 20 total minutes played in nine appearances. In addition to the one field goal, Parks grabbed five rebounds and had an assist, a turnover and a steal.
Need to know
Originally born in Texas, Parks has claim to both the Dallas-Fort Worth area and to Ohio. His mom, Shari, is from Texas, but the family moved to Ohio when he was 2 and he’s lived there ever since. She was a collegiate athlete, too, having played volleyball at UT Arlington. Parks took an official visit to Ohio State on Feb. 6, 2022, and saw the Buckeyes beat Maryland, 82-67. Prior to that, he had taken multiple unofficial visits to the program and was on hand for a football game against Tulsa on Sept. 18, 2021.
After each game during Parks’ senior season, coach Dan Hegemier said he would sign autographs for kids who would wait around. He set the all-time school scoring record on a dunk in a Jan. 24 game at Coldwater. Ohio State associate coach Jake Diebler was his primary recruiter. Parks participated in the Ohio-Kentucky All-Star game and the OHSBCA North/South game, where he went against onetime Ohio State commitment and eventual Michigan signee George Washington III. Parks was in the same conference as Colin White, now an Ohio State freshman.
He threw the ceremonial first pitch for St. Marys’ Little League season in 2023.
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2024-25 season outlook
Parks is one of the more difficult players to project because we got to see so little of him a season ago. There’s often a steeper learning curve for freshmen centers, but Parks made such a little in-game impact in 2023-24 that it’s hard to know what the baseline is for him. After Ohio State’s loss to Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament, Parks was asked what he had learned about his game during the season.
“I’m really not sure,” he told The Dispatch inside the locker room at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
The fact that he remains on the roster shows that there is belief that he can help the Buckeyes. When both Key and Okpara transferred out, Parks looked next in line at center behind Kentucky transfer Aaron Bradshaw. Then Ohio State added Croatian center Ivan Njegovan to the mix, securing a commitment from him in early summer and enrolling him for fall camp. Now, the 7-1, 250-pound Njegovan and 6-10, 260-pound Parks seem destined to battle each other for the right to be the primary traditional center backup.
Parks has a Big Ten-type body. The heaviest player on the roster, there figures to be opportunities for Ohio State to utilize his physical gifts in the paint against other similar-sized centers in the league. Yet without seeing him play any significant minutes against teams, Parks remains the literal biggest mystery on the roster.
“He didn’t play that much because we had Felix and Zed,” junior guard Bruce Thornton said. “Now he’s the next man up. I’m really on him because (I tell him), ‘We’re going to need you. You seen it from the bench, now you got a little bit of action, now you’re in the fire now.
“We need you to be you. Be a big. Be physical.’ “
Early reports from the preseason have Njegovan ahead of Parks due to the newcomer’s ability to better shoot and play away from the basket. If he can continue to develop his jumper and play with the pace Diebler is asking this team to utilize, there’s no reason he can’t carve out a role behind Bradshaw (and likely small-ball center Sean Stewart) this season. Even with talk of playing the 7-1, 215-pound Bradshaw on the wing while paired with a traditional big at center, it’s hard to see both Parks and Njegovan playing consistent minutes, so this will be a positional battle that figures to continue well into the season.
“It’s been really fun,” Parks said of playing against Bradshaw and Njegovan. “They’re making me better and I feel like I’m making them better, too. With all three of us on the same team, I think it’s going to be tough to deal with that, especially with us being able to play off of each other.”
Additional reading
Finally intact: One question for each Ohio State men’s basketball player
Austin Parks enjoys Ohio State experience as recruitment intensifies
Five things to know about 2023 Ohio State commitment Austin Parks
Last-second shot ended prep career for Ohio State’s Austin Parks
Big man Austin Parks focused on growing game as Ohio State career approaches
Previous power rankings
No. 13 – Kalen Etzler
No. 14 – Colby Baumann
No. 15 – Braylen Nash
No. 16 – Taison Chatman
