'I love it here': Chris Holtmann commits to staying at Ohio State
COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann’s name has been linked to head coaching vacancies, most notably Notre Dame’s and Ole Miss’, recently.
Holtmann was asked after Ohio State’s streak-snapping win over Illinois Sunday — the Buckeyes’ first victory since Jan. 21 — if he’s prepared to commit to the Buckeyes.
“Yes, absolutely,” Holtmann said. “I love it here. I love it here, and Gene [Smith] and I have been very open about our plan in terms of moving forward and what our plan was after last year with somewhat of a rebuild roster — what that was going to look like, how young we were going to be, our commitment to playing young guys, to backing that up with another young class.”
Holtmann continued: “It’s a little bit hard to do sometimes when you’re going into Year Six, and you’re saying, ‘OK, hey, we’re gonna philosophically look at how we want to build this thing to give us maybe our greatest potential as a program. But I think we have played our young guys, we have another good class coming, and there is some real excitement in that amidst the tremendous disappointment with how some things have gone.”
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Holtmann was then asked, as a follow-up, if that’s a “firm commitment” to him staying at Ohio State.
“Absolutely,” Holtmann said in response.
Holtmann is in his sixth year at the helm of the Buckeyes. After coming over from Butler, he has guided Ohio State to the NCAA Tournament each of the four years the postseason event has been held in his tenure. And the year it was canceled because of COVID-19, Holtmann coached arguably his best Buckeyes team, a group that won 21 regular season games and was top-20 in both KenPom adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency.
Barring a miracle run in the Big Ten Tournament, Ohio State will miss out on March Madness this year for the first time in Holtmann’s stay. Before Sunday, the Buckeyes had lost 14 of their last 15 games after a 10-3 start. That brutal stretch included a nine-game skid, the program’s longest losing streak since it dropped 17 contests in a row in 1997-98.
While 2022-23 is an outlier year for Holtmann’s run at Ohio State, in terms of regular season success, he has been criticized for his limited NCAA Tournament resume in Columbus. Of his Buckeyes’ four trips to The Dance, three have ended in the Round of 32 and, infamously, one ended at the hands of 15th-seeded Oral Roberts in the opening round of the tournament back in 2020-21.
