Ohio State Basketball: There is still some blame on Holtmann after run
The Ohio State basketball team wrapped up its 2022-2023 season with a loss to Purdue on Saturday. Chris Holtmann still needs to take the blame.
The Ohio State basketball team lost yesterday to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals. It was an impressive four-game run, to say the least for head coach Chris Holtmann and his squad. But Holtmann is still not without fault following the impressive play in Chicago.
Holtmann and his team figured some things out down the stretch by going young. But in all honesty, it was stuff that needed to be addressed in November and December, not in March. The main thing that helped Ohio State reach the semifinals was Holtmann’s trust in his true freshmen. He played Roddy Gayle Jr. and Felix Okpara serious minutes in Chicago, and they came of age.
But the reluctance of Holtmann to do this in less meaningful games is still a mystery. Yes, Ohio State got off to a fast start in the early portion of the schedule but wouldn’t you rather them finish strong instead?
No offense to Sean McNeil and Isaac Likekele but they were not going to take this team to the Final Four. If Holtmann would have taken some lumps early in the season by playing the freshmen then maybe we would have seen this version of Roddy Gayle Jr. in January instead of March.
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Holtmann will be back next season with another talented crop of freshmen. And with Bruce Thorton, Gayle, and Okpara all expected to be back this team has a chance to be good. But only if Chris Holtmann learned from his transgressions this season. He needs to play his talented freshman early in the season, work out the growing pains, and reap the rewards in the second half of the year.