Ohio
Top Ohio State Assistant Joel Justus Takes Job at Vanderbilt
Jake Diebler will have a new top assistant coach in 2026-27.
His top assistant from this past season, Joel Justus, announced on Tuesday that he’ll be leaving Ohio State to take an assistant coaching position at Vanderbilt, per CBS Sports.
News: Ohio State associate head coach Joel Justus is joining Mark Byington’s staff, source tells CBS Sports. Justus, 44, spent the past two years in Columbus and was previously at NC State for the magical F4 run in 2024 and also worked under John Calipari at UK for seven years.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 31, 2026
Justus served as Diebler’s top assistant for each of the head coach’s first two seasons at the helm of Ohio State, seeing the Buckeyes finish the 2024-25 season with a disappointing 17-15 record before aiding OSU in making its first NCAA Tournament in four years in 2025-26. The No. 8 seed Ohio State lost in the first round of the Big Dance to No. 9 seed TCU.
Before his time with the Buckeyes, Justus spent two seasons as an assistant coach at NC State, helping the Wolfpack reach the 2024 Final Four. He was also an assistant at Kentucky under John Calipari for seven years and spent one year at Arizona State.
Justus played college basketball at UNC Wilmington, the same alma mater as Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington, though the two did not overlap in their time there. The Commodores boasted a 27-9 record and finished fourth in the SEC in 2025-26, making the NCAA Tournament as a No. 5 seed and advancing to the second round before falling to No. 4 seed Nebraska.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested online political writer D.J. Byrnes, also known as The Rooster, at the statehouse on June 1 on a misdemeanor warrant.
A patrol spokesman said Byrnes, who posts his stories to his Substack subscribers, was arrested on an outstanding warrant. He was booked into the Franklin County Jail, records show. The patrol did not provide further details.
Byrnes’ colleague, Max Littman, said he believes the arrest is related to Byrnes texting photos of cartoon character Shrek’s penis to a state senator. “If that is in fact true, that he was arrested over that, then it’s blatant targeting a political opponent and journalist,” Littman said.
The arrest warrant for telecommunications harassment came from the city of Kirtland in Lake County. The warrant alleges that Byrnes sent two photos on May 6 to “J.C.” with the intent to harass.
State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, did not return messages seeking comment.
Byrnes routinely works the halls power at Columbus City Hall, Ohio State University and the Ohio Statehouse, looking for tips and ambushing officeholders for his Substack reports. He can be both charming and confrontational.
Recently, he posted a story based on one anonymous source who told him that Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tried to get into the New York Knicks locker room after the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA playoffs.
The story, and its spread, so bothered Ramaswamy that he posted a lengthy refute on X, calling it 100% fake.
State government reporter Laura Bischoff can be reached at lbischoff@usatodayco.com and @lbischoff on X.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — A bird rarely seen in North America was apparently spotted in Northeast Ohio of all places recently.
A lesser frigatebird was seen flying over Sippo Lake near Canton, according to several bird enthusiasts and photographers.
A photographer named Alex Eberts was kind enough to share his photos with ABC 6. You can see them at the top of this page.
Another photographer named Austin Rice posted this photo on Instagram and shared the details of what he saw on the night of May 23 in Stark County.
If you don’t know much about the lesser frigatebird, a site called eBird.com offers this description:
The smallest of the frigatebirds, but note that the female is larger than the male. Adults are easier to identify than younger birds. Adult males are almost entirely black with a red throat and white spurs emanating outwards from the body onto the wing. Adult females have a black belly and throat, a white breast and hind collar, with similar white spurs on their sides. Juvenile and immature plumages are variable and are best separated from other frigatebirds by size when comparison is possible. Mostly silent except while breeding in oceanic islands. Strongly pelagic during non-breeding season but wind-blown or fatigued birds can be found from continental coasts.
Eberts said in his own Facebook post that the May 23 sighting in Stark County was only the seventh reported sighting of the lesser frigatebird in the contiguous United States. The bird is more likely to be seen near the Indian Ocean, the Southeast Asian seas, Northern Australia to Western and Central Pacific Ocean, according to birdsoftheworld.org.
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