More physical than playing Beavercreek, Centerville grad Gabe Cupps muscles Ohio State’s Jamison Battle during his Indiana days. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Ohio State needs to improve in many ways to be an NCAA Tournament team again. Former Centerville star Gabe Cupps is one of the transfers Jake Diebler is depending on in a program looking for players that can impact winning in many ways.
Gabe Cupps adds more to a basketball team than what the box score enumerates or what your observations tell you. Watching a game or two isn’t enough.
That was the Gabe Cupps of Centerville High School. The more you watched him play, the more you realized he controlled the game at both ends of the floor with production, toughness and leadership. Enough people in Ohio noticed and voted him Mr. Basketball after his junior season in 2022.
Minster Bank is the official banking partner of Press Pros Magazine.com.
Mike Woodson saw those often-underrated abilities and character traits in Cupps and recruited him to Indiana. Jake Diebler, then an assistant at Ohio State, also recruited him because he saw a guard who impacted winning in ways that don’t make the highlights.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Cupps chose Indiana, but it’s a different program now. Woodson left at the end of this past season, and Cupps missed most of it because of a knee injury. Cupps considered his options and entered the transfer portal. Diebler didn’t hesitate to tell Cupps he was still a wanted player and leader in Columbus.
“He was very adamant about how he thinks I could improve their team and how I’d be a big part of it,” Cupps said “He said that what I bring is what he felt like they were missing a lot of last year.”
Cupps chose the Buckeyes and joined a productive backcourt of senior point guard Bruce Thornton and sophomore John Mobley Jr. Cupps will be a point guard who plays key minutes, is dependable, knows how to distribute the ball to scorers and will be disruptive on defense.
“He sees me being able to create for myself, create for other guys, just read advantages on offense,” Cupps said.
The on-court toughness of Cupps’ game reveals itself more and more as you watch him play. The numbers will come.
However, possibly more valuable than anything, Cupps will be good for the culture of a program trying to break a three-year NCAA Tournament drought. He will lead in action from the start and, sooner rather than later, with words. He will do it in a way Diebler surely envisions as he strives to build a program that values character. Diebler played point guard at Valparaiso and provided his team with much of the same tangibles and intangibles he expects from Cupps.
Centerville’s Gabe Cupps looks to pass against Pickerington Central’s Juwan Turner during the Ohio Play By Play Classic on Dec. 17, 2022, at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. (photo by John Hulkenberg)
“He says a lot of it is just me being an extension of him,” Cupps said. “He said he sees a lot of himself in me and how I can run a team and lead a team. A big part of it is just bringing guys with me and bringing up everybody else’s level.”
Cupps did that from the start of his high school career as a freshman playing for his dad, Brook Cupps. He led Centerville to the Division I state championship as a sophomore. The Elks made it back to state the next two years but didn’t win.
When the Elks lost to Pickerington Central in the 2022 final to end a 45-game winning streak, Cupps, a junior, didn’t cry for himself. He stood in the hallway outside the locker room and cried for senior teammates Tom House and Rich Rolf.
“The toughest part is knowing those seniors aren’t ever going to get a chance to put the jersey back on again,” he said, trying in vain to fight back tears. “I feel like they deserved to go out with a win. I feel like I just let them down.”
After Gabe’s final high school game, a loss in the 2023 state semifinals to Pickerington Central, Brook Cupps reflected on all his son achieved as a high school player. But nothing meant more to him than how his son interacted with his teammates.
“His leadership is, I mean, it’s off the charts, guys – it’s off the charts,” Brook said during the postgame interview. “I’ve coached for 25 years. Nobody’s even been remotely close to it. He’s just impacted so many things in our program.”
While Cupps finishes classes at Indiana, he is thinking about what he wants to do at Ohio State that he didn’t get to do at Indiana. He played a backup role as a freshman and was in the same role as a sophomore before he finally decided to have his knee checked four games into the season. An MRI revealed damage to the meniscus in his left knee and surgery followed. Cupps said he’s not certain when the injury occurred but probably during summer workouts.
Kaup Pharmacies is proud to sponsor area sports on Press Pros Magazine.
“I remember stopping and going between my legs, and I thought I got hit with a ball or something,” he said. “That’s really the only time I remember that maybe it could have happened.”
Cupps continued to play, but his playing time was limited so he had the knee checked. He expects to be cleared for a medical redshirt and have three years of eligibility remaining. Watching his team play and practice, and seeing Woodson become increasingly under fire, gave Cupps plenty of time to consider playing elsewhere. Indiana quickly hired Darian DeVries away from West Virginia.
“Obviously Coach Woodson leaving was a factor of it,” Cupps said. “I talked with Coach DeVries, and I just weighed Indiana as another school. I thought Ohio State had better things to offer me, and I had a better opportunity there – more of a want of me.”
Cupps’ time at Indiana did not go the way he expected. He said he didn’t play as well as he believes he is capable of in any way. The transfer portal allowed to hit reset.
“The portal can go either way,” he said. “Guys that just look for money, and that’s the driving factor, it gets a little bit sketchy. But as far as for me, it gives me an opportunity to look around and see if there’s any better situations out there for myself, and if I can help a team in another way.”
He takes it seriously…Cupps reacts to a loss to Pickerington in the 2022 OHSAA Division I final that snapped Pickerington’s 45-game win streak.
Cupps chose Ohio State quickly, but he had discussions with several schools. He likes being two hours closer to home, and he said his decision came down to Ohio State and Dayton. And, while he said it was far from a deciding factor, he wants to prove to himself he can be a good player and help a team win in the Big Ten.
“It was tough,” he said. “Those are two great programs, but I kind of had to go with my gut. And I felt like my gut was telling me Ohio State.”
Cupps’ gut feeling was mostly about basketball, playing for a coach he believed wanted him and finding an opportunity to play and contribute to what he believes will be a winning culture. Those things, he says, mean more to him than anything else, including the money he gets paid in NIL deals. He said he stands to earn a similar amount at Ohio State as he did at Indiana.
“I wasn’t negotiating and telling people I need this, or I need that,” he said. “I let them tell me how much they would offer me, and then I would just factor that into the decision like any other factor. It’s weird to talk about, but it’s part of the game now.”
That doesn’t mean Cupps doesn’t appreciate the opportunities to be paid as a college athlete. The NIL money, he says, is a blessing he doesn’t want to complicate. He listens to financial advisers and his parents about how to invest and create more dollars and not waste them.
Huffer Chiropractic can help your athlete perform at their best – with offices in Osgood, Jackson Center, and Dublin, Ohio.
“If you’re a normal college student, you’re coming out of college with a ton of debt, whereas college athletes now are coming out of college with a good amount of money,” he said. “If you make good decisions with it, which is what I’m trying to do, then you can set yourself up really well to have a head start.”
Cupps, who turns 21 in July, has a different view than most in older generations who debate the merits and pitfalls of allowing college athletes to earn money based on who they are. Many are earning more, some far more, than a college graduate could imagine earning in their first job or ever.
“I always think about it like I haven’t gotten paid for basketball until I was 18, 19 years old,” he said. “I’ve been working and working, and even though it wasn’t my job necessarily, it turned into my job, and now I’m just being compensated. But I wouldn’t have the chance to be compensated for it if I didn’t put all that unpaid work in at the beginning. Because when I started playing basketball, I was just doing it because I loved to hoop. I had no idea I would eventually make money. It’s very important that I keep that same mindset that I’m doing this because I love to hoop.”
On his way to a business degree, Cupps knows he will learn other ways to make money. So he focuses on playing basketball because he loves it. He doesn’t want to rely on NIL money the way he has seen others do.
“They might not play because they really love the game,” he said. “That’s a dangerous thing because you can tell when somebody loves what they’re doing.”
Cupps likes what he’s seen from the two other transfers who have committed to Ohio State so far. Both are frontcourt players with more offensive skills than the Buckeyes had in those positions this past season.
Christoph Tilly is a 7-foot post player who averaged 12.5 points and 4.9 rebounds as a junior at Santa Clara.
“His greatest asset in the post is just his footwork and his length,” Cupps said. “He does a really good job of using his shot fakes and pivots and stuff around the rim to get guys jumping and off balance, and then just goes up and finishes over them. He has good touch around the rim too.”
Brandon Noel, who played in high school at Chillicothe, left Wright State to play his final season in the Big Ten. He averaged 19 points and 7.7 rebounds this past season. Cupps saw Noel in person during his freshman season when IU played Wright State.
“When Coach Diebler told me that they were going after him, I was all on board with that,” Cupps said. “He just does things to help you win, go to the boards, offensive rebounds. He can step out and make a three, he can go by you, just do a little bit of everything.”
That will be Cupps’ goal, too, as a Buckeye – do a little bit of everything.
We have your next truck,and we have it in stock. Call us today…937-335-0068.