Chris Holtmann feels stress of losses but 'in concert' with Ohio State AD Gene Smith about future
What has happened since a convincing New Year’s Day win against Northwestern, and what does it mean for the future?
The two questions have hovered over the Ohio State men’s basketball program for the last six weeks. Since a 73-57 win at Welsh-Ryan Arena moved the Buckeyes to 10-3 overall and 2-0 in Big Ten play, it’s been a methodical march to the Big Ten basement to the tune of two five-game losing streaks sandwiched around a 16-point outlier of a win against Iowa on Jan. 21.
On Feb. 2, with Ohio State still above .500 on the season, athletic director Gene Smith reaffirmed to The Dispatch what he put on paper when signing Holtmann to a three-year contract during the offseason that keeps the coach under contract through the 2027-28 season: the program is committed to him despite the current struggles.
“I’m confident in what Chris is doing,” Smith told The Dispatch in a brief interview less than hour before the start of what would be a 65-60 loss to the Badgers. “Chris is our coach of the future. He’s doing an outstanding job. These are young guys (on the roster). I really look forward to them continuing to grow and get better. There’s a lot of games left. We’ve just got to keep getting better.”
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Ohio State has now lost three straight since that interview and will host Michigan State on Sunday trying to avoid the longest losing streak since it dropped 17 consecutive games during the 1997-98 season. Thursday night, it was a 69-63 loss to Northwestern, a third straight single-digit loss.
Down year for Ohio State basketball
It's an unquestionable down year for a program and coach unaccustomed to them, but it’s part of a process Smith and now Holtmann said they have discussed during the offseason.
“I have a great relationship and respect for Gene and the leadership here,” Holtmann said Friday. “I know how much they want us to continue to grow and I think there is a level of excitement about what this young class can grow into. We feel that as a staff, as hard as it is right now, and certainly are excited about how we’re recruiting. The reality is it doesn’t take away the sting from the challenges we’re facing right now.
“(Smith and I) are always in concert in terms of conversations, but the focus really is on preparing our group right here. “Conversations I had with Gene, there was an understanding months ago about how we wanted to shape the roster moving forward. Those conversations, they’re not public … but there was an understanding there.”
The 2022 recruiting class was rated No. 8 nationally by 247Sports.com, and four of those five players are in the playing rotation that stretches eight or nine deep. The Buckeyes have signed a four-man class for 2023 that is ranked No. 6 nationally.
Amid all that, Holtmann has repeatedly said he and his staff remain focused on the day at hand and the next practice, game or whatever that is on the schedule while trying to avoid getting bogged down by the big picture.
“Certainly some of the challenges we’ve had have been just that, very challenging, but if you were to come and look at our practice you’d see how engaged our players are and how engaged our young guys are and that creates excitement about what we can finish here,” he said. “That’s only our focus right now.”
Without a doubt, the stress has been steadily building. Ohio State’s players have consistently talked about needing to correct just a few mistakes here and there that make the difference between winning and losing close games, steadfastly professing a belief that the issues holding this team back are correctable even as the losses have continued to mount.
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Chris Holtmann's record
Holtmann has won at least 20 games in all eight seasons as a high-major Division I coach. His last losing season came in 2011-12, when Gardner Webb went 12-20 in his second season. He’s never lost more than five straight games since his first season there, when the Runnin’ Bulldogs endured a nine-game losing streak.
This time around, he’s relied on advice from friends and mentors within the coaching community including Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Providence’s Ed Cooley. When Holtmann was ejected during the first half of the Wisconsin game, Izzo called him before the game was over and the two spoke later.
“Tom’s been unbelievable in the last couple years,” Holtmann said. “He’s obviously a guy that I listen to, because he’s got incredible wisdom and he’s been through it. We haven’t been through a stretch like this, so when I haven’t been through a stretch like this, you are leaning on guys that might be able to just give you a different perspective.”
Ohio State lost five straight games during Holtmann’s second season, and during that low point of the 2018-19 season he talked to Cooley, Villanova’s Jay Wright and even former Butler coach Brad Stevens. Now retired, Wright was on the microphone for last Sunday’s CBS broadcast at Michigan.
“Ed Cooley is a good friend that has checked in on a regular basis,” Holtmann said. “Jay Wright is a guy who’s been an incredible resource in this stretch. Tom’s been phenomenal. They’ve been consistent. I’d be foolish not to listen to those guys. In these stretches you can listen to too many people and that can confuse or distort you. No one knows what this is like and what losing feels like other than coaches. Those three guys have been great.”
So what has he heard? What’s gone wrong for a team that entered the New Year looking like a contender to finish in the upper echelon of the Big Ten?
“Six of those games were games we should win, that we were favored significantly,” Holtmann said. “You take out six of those wins in the non-conference, I’m not diminishing anyone we played, but we didn’t beat a tournament team at that point. College basketball, the conference season really determines in some ways the maturity of your group and it really puts a premium on your experience, your toughness, your ability to finish close games and that’s where we have really done some good things in the past.
“We understood the results could be skewed early. We knew there were going to be challenges in the Big Ten. Our challenge now is to finish well.”
There are eight guaranteed opportunities remaining.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Losses mount, but Chris Holtmann, Gene Smith 'in concert' about future
