Ohio State basketball: Why has Tanner Holden not played?

The Ohio State basketball team has won two games in a row after losing nine straight. It was good to see them play more connected basketball on Wednesday night as they honored the seniors. One senior who didn’t play, which was surprising, was Tanner Holden.

Holden was expected to be honored that night. In fact, he didn’t play. Holden was a 20-point a game scorer when he was with Wright State before coming to play for the Buckeyes this year. Why has his playing time dwindled into nothing at this point in the year?

For one, he has a year of eligibility left. He could come back next year and get a bigger role on a team that will lose three seniors. But if you look at Holden’s game logs, things have not been impressive this season for him. He’s averaging just 3.8 points per game and gets just under 14 minutes per game.

The biggest reason that I would point to is that his defense has not been good enough. When he’s out there, teams target him. He also doesn’t do a good job with help defense. Even so, I thought he’d still get more playing time. Defense wasn’t his calling card at Wright State either.

Getting two straight DNP-CD’s is surprising. I wouldn’t expect him to play this weekend against Michigan State either. Chris Holtmann is playing all of the freshmen to get them some experience in what is now a lost season so that they can develop for next year.

Holden could opt to transfer again, but that seems unlikely. I hope he can find some playing time next year because I really like his scoring potential. he can really shoot the ball if given the opportunity to run a bit more of the offense.