Ohio State basketball: Chris Holtmann officially on the hot seat
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State basketball team has been under the direction of Chris Holtmann for five years now. While he has won a lot of games in the regular season and won the Big Ten Coach of the Year back in 2018, he hasn’t been able to truly win many games that matter.
Perhaps Holtmann’s greatest accomplishment so far was getting to the Big Ten Tournament Championship last season and losing in overtime. What did that get the Buckeyes? A 2-seed and a swift first-round exit to a 15-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
It’s time Holtmann is officially put on the hot seat. These last two losses are some of the worst he’s had in the regular season since he’s been the coach in Columbus. Losing against Maryland and Nebraska in back-to-back games is unacceptable and extremely frustrating.
It always seems that Holtmann’s teams start to crater when they are about to achieve something truly great. They had a chance to win a Big Ten title for the first time in a decade before losing these two games. They had the loss against Illinois in that Big Ten Tournament final last year. The losses in the NCAA Tournament.
All of these make me think that Holtmann might not be the right man for this job. Yes, he has developed some good players here. Jae’Sean Tate is starting in the NBA and Duane Washington and Keita Bates-Diop are both getting minutes in that league too. But that’s not good enough.
Holtmann’s ultimate job is to win games that matter for this Ohio State basketball program. He hasn’t done that yet. I truly believe that unless he makes a miracle Elite Eight run this year, and that truly would be a miracle, Gene Smith might have to start looking elsewhere.
Next. It's time OSU changed their uniforms. dark
Holtmann is a nice guy and his players seem to enjoy playing for him. But that doesn’t change the fact that he can’t adapt and make the right personnel choices or call the right plays when the going gets tough. That’s why the Buckeyes lose these games.