McCurdy: Another chapter or The End for Chris Holtmann at Ohio State?
COLUMBUS — Born and raised in Marion, I couldn't help but be an Ohio State men's basketball fan.
My first game was high atop the balcony in St. John Arena watching Herb Williams and Kelvin Ransey do their thing in the late 1970s.
I was fortunate to be in the building for dozens of games throughout the 1980s, including an upset of No. 1 Indiana and a triple OT game with Purdue.
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While I didn't attend Ohio State, I was plugged into the Buckeyes during my college years, watching all those Jimmy Jackson teams whenever they were on TV and going to as many games as possible.
Like everyone else, I suffered through the demise of the program by the late 1990s. With the exception of the Final Four run in 1999, I tuned out the Jim O'Brien years, bored by his teams and disillusioned by the state of college basketball.
Thad Matta peaked my interest in the program in the mid-aughts, and I became an interested observer. I was lucky enough to have Ohio State men's basketball as a full-fledged beat for a few years starting in the early 2010s and continued to cover the team somewhat regularly through the 2019-20 COVID-shortened season.
That's a big wind up for this: I long ago gave up on the 2022-23 OSU men's basketball team.
I was skeptical about this bunch even when they were winning games in November and early December. An overtime loss to North Carolina in Madison Square Garden was all I needed to see. I knew what was coming, and haven't watched more than a collective six minutes of this team since then. They're simply not worthy of wasting my time.
Losing streaks in the second-half of the season doomed the end of Matta's tenure and the extended skids have become the standard in the Chris Holtmann era.
In Holtmann's first season in Columbus in 2017-18 with a pair of NBA players on the roster, a skilled big man and veterans throughout the lineup, the Buckeyes limped to a 3-4 finish in their last seven games, failing to win Big Ten championships or make the Sweet 16. The following season Ohio State went 1-6 in January and finished 4-8 in its final 12 games.
The 2019-20 season saw a 2-5 January actually get reversed, going 6-3 in its last nine games before it was all abruptly canceled at the Big Ten Tournament due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The next season OSU went 3-6 in its last nine and was upset by Oral Roberts in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Last year was more of the same, going 5-3 in January before losing 6 of 10 to end the season with another first-weekend loss in the NCAAs.
The Buckeyes haven't been to the Sweet 16 or beyond since 2013, and it's been that long since they've earned a Big Ten banner either in the tourney or regular season. They won't be anywhere close to ending those streaks this year.
Just as it collapsed late against the Tar Heels in December, Ohio State has continued to crater once the calendar turned. They are 2-11 since January started and that's including a win over Northwestern on New Year's Day. The Buckeyes are in the midst of a seven-game losing streak and that's not taking into account a trip to Purdue today, so it might be even worse by the time you're reading this.
The last two seasons that undid Matta's run in Columbus weren't as bad as this one Holtmann and Co. are enduring right now.
And that's a conundrum.
Everyone is entitled to a bad season once in a while if they've earned it. Has Holtmann earned a pass?
He's gotten Ohio State into March Madness every season. He's produced ranked teams, and his men have enjoyed some good wins through the years. This year's freshman class was allegedly the best in the Big Ten and one of the top groups in the country. Next year's class has similar promise, according to the rankings, which have them as top five nationally.
But he has yet to get the most out of a team in Columbus. Admittedly cherry picking the end of season games over his first five seasons, the Buckeyes are 20-27 in mid-to-late February and March games. The COVID-shortened 2020 campaign is the lone year he closed with a winning record when it was winning time. Every other year was sub-.500, and this one will be no different.
Just as his teams struggle to close out games, his teams struggle to close out seasons, too. That's Holtmann's track record. That's a big part of his resume.
He's fond of saying that the story is still being written while in the midst of a season, but his story is getting redundant and stale at Ohio State. He's been consistent in reaching the bare minimum of expectations for his squads, but the next time he truly elevates a basketball team in Columbus will be the first time.
So does he get to write another chapter or is this The End?
If this was a choose-your-own-adventure book of yore, I know what I'd pick.
Rob McCurdy is a sports writer at the Marion Star and USA Today Network-Ohio and can be reached at rmccurdy@gannett.com, 419-610-0998, Twitter @McMotorsport and Instagram @rob_mccurdy_star.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: McCurdy: Another chapter or The End for Chris Holtmann at Ohio State?
