BOSTON, Mass. — Twenty years after his missed 12-foot jumper left him in tears in the postgame locker room and the Ohio State Buckeyes one step short of the Final Four, Chris Jent is back. Now a coach, not a player, but just as much a Buckeye, just as thrilled every time he puts on the scarlet and gray, Jent has reached the moment that helped him decide to return to the college game.

A former interim NBA head coach in Orlando, LeBron James' shooting coach in Cleveland and a head coach in the making at one level or the other, Jent, 42, is in some ways still the kid who in 1992 couldn't believe his college career ended in the Southeast Region final in Kentucky with an overtime loss to Michigan and its Fab Five.

Overtime came only after Jent's missed jumper in the final seconds, a shot that caused him to say then, "I wish I had that shot back. You don't know how much I wish that."

Today, with No. 2 seed Ohio State in the East Region final against No. 1 Syracuse, and with Jent on the bench as a first-year assistant under Thad Matta, is the closest he can come to getting that shot again.

"No matter how long you've been in basketball, you recognize the teams that have a chance," Jent said. "We had a chance, and we fell short. Now, does this team have a chance? This team has a chance. What we do with it is on our shoulders. But every year you play or you coach, you may not have that type of team. But when you do have it, you recognize it."

What Jent recognized then, and still carries with him now, is the idea that he cost his team its trip to the Final Four, that last shot part of a 2-for-12 night as the Buckeyes lost to a team they had beaten twice during the regular season.

"Heck yeah, no doubt about it, it was my fault. That's how I felt," Jent said. "We were like brothers, so the hardest part was, it not only felt like you lost the game for your team, but it was knowing you would never play with those guys again and never wear the Ohio State uniform again. That reality is very hard to deal with.

"As an adult you always go back and say if you had done A, B or C a little bit differently, maybe you would have been more successful. I hope that experience allows me to help them be more successful. I would love to see Ohio State win the national championship. It's been too long, 1960 is a couple generations ago. So it's definitely that failure of mine, as a person and as a team member, that was part of the reason for coming back."

Matta has heard Jent express those sentiments, and he remains impressed with Jent's connection to Ohio State. Jent has told Matta of all the OSU games he watched in recent years while in hotel rooms on NBA road trips.

"He's been tuned into our program for a long time," Matta said.

And that NBA experience helps the Buckeyes tune into Jent, who has brought some professional ideas to the OSU offense.

"He was at that level every kid dreams of being at," said OSU sophomore Deshaun Thomas, who believes he can relate to Jent as a shooter. "I heard he played hard, he used to dive in the stands for no reason. I wouldn't do that."

If it got the Buckeyes to New Orleans, Jent probably would dive into the stands again today, for the 2012 Buckeyes and the 1992 Buckeyes. His former college roommate and teammate Bill Robinson, now a middle school reading teacher in Canton, sent Jent a text message Friday morning along the lines of, "Twenty years ago we [messed] up against Michigan. I'm hoping at least one of us on the team could make it to the Final Four."

"Even though basketball has taken a back seat in my life," Robinson said Friday, "there's still that one loss, that loss to Michigan, that just bugs me. We knew we had the ability to make it to the next level and we didn't do it. It just sticks with you."

Twenty years ago, Robinson was consoling Jent in the locker room. Now he will be rooting for him. Win or lose, with a lifetime in the game, Jent is better equipped to handle the result. But just thinking about a win, thinking about what would come next and what he could be a part of, brought a smile to his face this week in Boston.

"That would be perfect," Jent said. "To come back and do that and see coach Matta and The Ohio State University win a national championship, that would be very special to me."