To someone with even the vaguest knowledge of the sport, if it happens with different personnel, it could still be the personnel. At least until they get veteran. Without ice on the floor there's only one true ball handler.
I think this article actually underplays how often Holtmann teams blow leads. I'm actually surprised it didn't happen more last year, but the game at Rutgers and the Penn State game in Indy were true Holtmann Specials. The Michigan game should count too, big halftime lead at home with Dickinson out and then they just shit their pants in the second half.
2021 Big Ten Tournament was the all timer, they're so lucky they almost won it....up 14 with 3:25 to go against Minnesota, eke out a 4 point win. Purude, up EIGHTEEN at halftime, blow the entire lead and survive in OT. Michigan, up 12 with 4 minutes to go, survive via a missed buzzer beater attempt from Michigan.
To me the true Achilles heel of Holtmann teams the last 2 years (and now perhaps starting to bleed into this year) is two fold. One: the defense is flat out not even close to good enough. 2021 = 82nd ranked defense, 2022 = 111th best defense, this year = 76th best defense (improvement! lol). When you can't get any stops when you need them, you're going to lose leads. The second problem is Holtmann doesn't run any freaking offense. That's not just my opinion, that's the opinion of many I know who know the game of leatherballbounce a hell of a lot better than me. The highest level of ball I played was south suburban catholic league 8th grade in Chicago, so I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination but to me our offense is entirely predicated on guys hitting ridiculously tough shots and when things get tight at the end of games and those shots aren't falling, you're screwed twice now because you also don't have the defense to get stops. If anyone on this forum would like to chime in here on what OSU actually tries to do on offense, I would honestly love to hear it and that's not sarcasm.
Just think about all the times Duane Washington, EJ Liddell and Branham bailed us out. Those guys were SO GOOD. They will never be fully appreciated. They're the reason we had top 10-ish KenPom offenses in 2021 and 2022. I saw the same thing happening late against UNC....guys just standing around, absolutely no offense being run but Brice and Bruce were just out there hitting tough ass shots. And you have to give credit to Holtmann for recruiting these kids. But man. He's just NOT a good coach. We've got over 5 years of evidence now to back it up too.
His style of offense is very easy to breakdown, run a high screen and roll action to try and get a switch onto a center or get a guard / forward on the wing and drive into the foul line area. While this one player or maybe a second with the screen and roll the other three players spread out behind the three point line trying to provide space. There is minimal player and ball movement non ball side.
To be frank, I was somewhat surprised that there were not more blown double digit leads blown leading to a loss, I would like to see how more games had the blown double digit lead that they eventually won.
The offense is exceeding expectations due to the talent level of the individual players, even with some are being asked to do things that are not part of their pedigree. I look at a player like Holden, he thrived against lower level competition but has yet to find a defined place on this team. He had a long history being able to get to the foul line, he has not been able to replicate that against better competition. McNeil disappears from the offense for too long, he has these two- three bursts of offense then goes quiet for the next fifteen.
Most of us thought that Sueing would be the focus of the offense given his ability and experience, he has been far to inconsistent while Thornton and Sensabaugh have become the more dependable offensive players however they both need to some dramatic improvement on the defensive end.
I’d also add the lack of bigs in the paint and the lack of a true ball handler at the end of games, although this year it appears to be a little better than last year. Frustrating as all get up.
As far as the offense, I agree that I see very little set plays being orchestrated. If our guys aren’t at the rim for a rebound, it’s a one and done quick possession and then they get burned on the transition defense. Not on a regular basis but enough to impact the games.
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
Recently, until this season Holtmann used the transfer process to get a point guard, he did not bring in a veteran point guard for some reason this year In the past he brought in CJ Walker( FSU) , CJ Jackson ( JUCO) and Wheeler ( PSU) to fill those roles.
Agree on the defense. Not nearly good enough. Holtmann's whole recruiting and coaching philosophy is predicated on building versatility and balance on both ends, so if we're not going to be T30-ish in efficiency on both ends of the floor it is really going to limit the ceiling of what Holtmann's teams can do.
His Butler teams were pretty balanced, though typically a little stronger on defense. His first team at OSU was pretty good on both ends, his second team was good on defense and bad on offense, his third team was pretty good on both ends--probably his most balanced team by the end of the season--and then the post-season was cancelled. The past two seasons we have been very good in adjusted offensive efficiency but the defense has been poor.
Defense is a point of emphasis for Holtmann, to the point where he won't play guys until they show they can be at least adequate on that end. But the roster the past few seasons hasn't given him a lot of options, or I should say he hasn't given himself the best options in terms of how he built the roster. Not a lot of two-way players outside of EJ and Kyle when Kyle's head was clear and he was hitting shots. Even a guy like Malaki, who was great on offense, was a defensive liability. I am hopeful that with the current recruiting we are bringing in a little more two-way play, but I do think that even with our personnel being what it was the past two seasons, we should have been at least somewhat better than we were on our defense. So I do have some concerns about Holtmann's defensive scheme getting a little stale or maybe he's not adapting it enough to his personnel or not teaching it well enough, I just don't know. Whatever the issue is, it needs to get fixed.
Holtmann/Pedon and now Holtmann/Diebler teach a pretty simple but effective offense. It's basically about spreading the floor and running ball screen actions to get the match-ups you want on offense. I would say the basic form of it is something that a LOT of college basketball teams use because it lets players play without trying to dictate a lot of set actions or floor coaching or have some sort of elaborate motion offense scheme in place. When it is getting harder and harder to keep a roster together and having a core unit of guys who can grow together in a system, it gets more and more difficult to run those types of offenses (and recruit to them) effectively. The adjusted offensive efficiency numbers don't lie--outside of one season, Holtmann's offenses here have done a pretty good job of getting his guys shots they can make. While it may be simple and allow freedom to the players, I think Holtmann and his assistants seem to do a good job of teaching the guys how to play it well, unselfishly, while maintaining good floor spacing, and also flexible for the insertion of cutting actions and certain called plays within the flow of it. They also do a good job of getting the team to play it at a controlled pace in the half court (when not getting pressured, lol) and they really do coach shot selection.
I think Wright's Nova is the optimal example of what Holtmann would kinda like OSU's offense and defense to look like. He hasn't yet had a overall talent level roster anywhere close to the best Nova teams, but it's possible we are getting there if we can get a decent overlap between our 2022 and 2023 classes and can maintain a similar level of recruiting for the subsequent classes.
You have to back to the coaching they are getting at the high school / AAU ball level. Very few coaches stress playing good defense, everyone wants the offensive, highlight reel play that they can put on some tape sent to a recruiter. The coaches don't use the bench enough when a player is putting out minimal defensive effort. It is also not an issue with individual defense and also a team issue as well. It takes time to develop good team defense, you aren't getting that when you don't spend much time practicing and teaching compared to the amount of time in actual games.
Most teams don't spend much time running or breaking presses in practice either, as we have seen first hand an effective press defense when used either the entire game or for short periods can be very disruptive to a team.
think Wright's Nova is the optimal example of what Holtmann would kinda like OSU's offense and defense to look like. He hasn't yet had a overall talent level roster anywhere close to the best Nova teams, but it's possible we are getting there if we can get a decent overlap between our 2022 and 2023 classes and can maintain a similar level of recruiting for the subsequent classes.
I think most fans would agree that this would be ideal. I also think it’s unlikely here at OSU. A lot of players seem to look at the brand OSU as a stepping stone to loftier goals. So the NBA is the ceiling and the best players want to get there as quickly as possible. Thad Matta had some teams like that but he also had a balance with guys who stayed for many years, like Diebler and Aaron Craft for example.
Holtman’s offenses are not difficult to run if you have guys that are actually willing to put in the time to get the routines down and timing issues and passes, things like that. However, Holtmann seems to get in his own head at times and uncertainty carries over into the games
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
It's nice to see a reasonably well thought out breakdown instead of just blatant criticism.
I think the defensive issue is simply athleticism and believe it or not height. Until this recent uptick in recruiting the athleticism was lacking, not every player but it wasn't evident players 1-8. Since he's been here, it's been one of the smaller teams in the league as well. 6-8, 6-9 centers don't cut it in big boy ball, especially when they aren't elite athletes. Sueing is stout but isn't real athletic or a great ball handler. But when he's your tallest forward, that hurts defensively and with rebounding. Look at how the new center 6-11 moves, night and day. When they get 6-8 to 6-10 forwards and 6-11 to 7ft+ centers, and 6-6 and taller off guards the D will magically appear. They look like they are already better athletes.
The elder wesson was a better defender than sueing, why? He doesn't appear to be a better athlete. The younger wesson was a better defender than key, same ? Want to, smarter defensively? I'd say it's some of both. If it were just scheme, he wouldn't have had some good defensive teams already.
I agree on the athleticism, we typically were lacking good quickness at 2-3 guys of the 5 in our line-ups the past couple seasons. We have some better athleticism on this team than maybe the past couple years but difficult to put it all on the floor at the same time and maintain the offense and experience level (and the experience/BB IQ is certainly a factor in the defense, too, as you pointed out).
I don't necessarily agree on the height but I can agree insomuch as when height equals length. Length is what allows you to guard horizontally as well as vertically and in modern basketball you need to have that side-to-side ability, you can't just park tall dudes next to the basket. Key has good length and if he was a little lighter on his feet I think he would be a really good defender now that the mental aspect of his game is catching up on that end. But he is not a plus athlete, so that goes back to the first point. Likekele has exceptional length and solid athleticism and a desire to defend, which goes a long way. He is by a huge margin our most versatile defender and we miss him on that end. I don't mind him guarding 1-4 and think he could even guard the 5 in a pinch. That's a real asset.
I think Holtmann tends to recruit a little smaller on the PF side of things because he wants switchability and agility with his forwards and it's a little harder to get those things as the guys start getting 6'8 or taller. At the same time he'd prefer they have some offensive versatility, too. So you get forwards that have all that and are taller, you are talking one-and-done types that usually go to the blue bloods.
Though 6'6-6'7ish, I think Middleton and Royal are great gets for Holtmann's system as forwards. Both guys are long, Middleton is really light on his feet and gets after it on defense, Royal has a physical frame and motor but also plays with some finesse, Middleton can handle the ball and pass and shoot a bit, Royal has a pretty developed offensive game and can post up. There will be a learning curve on defense, particularly with Royal, but I think we are getting close to seeing, finally, the kind of line-ups Holtmann has wanted to have at OSU. Even if Sensabaugh is one and done, if we have Thornton, Gayle, Chatman, Holden, Brown, Middleton, Royal, Key, and Okpara next season, that theoretically gives Holt a lot to work with in terms of fielding two-way line-ups.
Criticizing the D is legit, it hasn't been good for a couple years. But the offense is 4th, after the nc game. But once one gets an opinion it's hard to get away from it. You see what you want to see.
You are using close wins in which they had big leads as part of your argument?
If so, I'll throw out Holtmann Year 2 being down 20 with 13 mins left against Wisky without Kaleb Wesson. Bucks force OT. That same Big 10 tourney the Bucks were down 19 in the first half and down 13 midway thru the 2nd half and forced OT against #1 Illinois. Down 20 at Mackey Arena in the 2nd half only to lose by a Jaden Ivey buzzer beater. And these are the close losses. They have had double digit deficit wins over Duke, Rutgers, @Iowa, @Purdue, etc as well.
I do think it has happened to us, at least the last 2-3 years, more than we have come back against others. But I think that mainly goes to defense. Just look at the UNC game. The offensive execution was there. Zed hits a wide open 3 to go up 2. UNC gets an easy lay up. The Bucks run a nice set, same as the Rutgers game when Brice went too far deep and got his shot blocked, and this time Brice nails the mid range jumper. And we all know how the last 2 seconds went. That KenPom defense needs to be in the 30s or better to be a Big 10 title contender. If it remains in the 70s-80s, we are playing with fire and need the offense to remain super efficient, which is hard to given they are #5 right now.
As far as the offense goes, I don't buy that osu runs no offense and they just make difficult shots. They've been a Top 25 offense in 4 of 5 seasons and are #5 right now. Over 5 seasons, they have two undrafted free agent NBA players, one late 1st rounder, and two 2nd rounders. The blue bloods have 2-5 first rounders every year. 5 NBA players in 5 years is a great step for the program, but it's not a crazy amount of top end talent given that none were lottery picks and only one was a 1st rounder.
I do think they have relied too much on 2-3 offensive options in the Holtmann era and that maybe hurts them at the end of games sometimes. I feel like they are in better shape this year as I think they have 5 decent to great late game options in Key, McNeil, Thornton, Sueing, and Sensabaugh with Holden and Gayle as possibilities later in the season.
Not that efficiency numbers are everything, but the last 2 seasons (and so far this year), osu is basically a mirror image of Iowa as far as KenPom offensive (great) and defensive (not great) efficiency numbers.
Fran McCaffery has been a head cooch for 27 years, 13 at Iowa, so basically twice as long as Holtmann overall and in the Big 10. He has zero Sweet 16s.
Bucks' defensive #s need to look more similar to Holtmann's 1st 3 years: top 30 each year. I know we had no Sweet 16s in those years as well but one tourney got cancelled and Holtmann's 2nd team had hardly any offensive talent. The defenses on all of those teams were good enough to be 2nd weekend teams.
Offense has been better than expected given all the new faces. Defense needs to get quite a bit better.
I am not sure Iowa is the program we want to be compared with.
I think I've been pretty neutral on the Holtmann debate. I'm still positive on this years team, but results matter. Expectations weren't particularly high for this group, but a couple of the frosh have clearly been better than anticipated (at least nationally). The transfers and Sueing need to pick up their play as we gear up for conference play. If we aren't .500 or better in the B1G this year, next year should be get past the S16 or lose your job year.
I wasn't comparing them in a positive way. I was saying having a Top 15 offense but a pretty weak defense (Top 75 or worse) tends to not work in the NCAA tourney. And that's what a lot of Fran's teams look like on paper and what osu has looked like the last 2 years.
I thought that was clear from my post. My bad. And I agree if they don't make a deep run this year, there will be a lot of pressure next season. But there is still a long way to go. To each their own, but I am pretty happy with how this team has looked after 10 games with so many new players and a starter missing for 2 games and one of our 2 remaining returning vets missing all season. I'm thought going to think about that possible scenario until March plays out for this year's team.
I know a lot of the fan base is already doom and gloom and is ready to write off this team already. But I think this roster is built better for postseason success than the last two years. But they obviously need to get and stay healthy and progress, especially on the defensive end.
Fair enough. I saw the Iowa comparison and just thought thats not the program I am looking to be comparable with.
I am still excited about what this team could become. As I mentioned in other posts, there is reason to be optimistic about this team. I'd say the first 10 games have been OK. The NET rankings are fluid, but so far we are 0-3 in Q1 games. Could have beaten UNC, coulda lost to Rutgers. We'll see how the rest of the year plays out, but my assumption was based on in playing out how the metrics suggest (somewhere betwee 11-9 and 9-11) which would make us bubble type team. If that happens, I think next year (Hotlmanns 7th in the program) needs to produce results that are better than what we've seen.
To Nomatta's point, I get that the tournament is a bit of a crapshoot and upsets happen, but it will be Holtmanns 6th attempt here and you'd expect in that time that either you'd have advanced as the favorite or been the team to pull an upset to get to the S16. How many years do you think you should give a coach to meet what I think what are pretty reasonable goals of making it that far in the dance? I like Holtmann and the staff, but at some point the results speak for themselves and you have to either redefine your expectations for the program, or find someone who will meet the ones you've set. I think 7 years is enough time to show what you can do. He's improved the recruiting, now its time to get results.
To that point, I would hope that if we fire a coach for not making the S16 enough or whatever, that we would hire a coach that has proven he can do better (or maybe Diebler).
Barring an emergency scenario which no one can imagine, there's a zero % chance they hire a head coach without head coaching experience. You think they're nd or something?
I've made myself clear on h. I think he's a great coach. He's a keeper.
But on the outside, my favorite coach is oats, I was curious to see what he'd do once he got to buma. The exact same thing he did at buffalo. He's had an impressive career.
I get that the metrics expect us to be a .500 team in the Big 10. But what did we think the metrics would think after the first 6 weeks of the season with 4 Frosh and 3 transfers and one of our key vets not playing competitive basketball for a year?
I get we could be Purdue. But even they had quite a bit more continuity than we did.
On the one hand, I'm not super confident we will beat those metric predictions and end up being a 13-7 to 15-5 type Big 10 team. But on the other hand, my predicted Big 10 Champ (Illinois) is 0-2. The media's Big 10 darling (Indiana) has 3 double digit losses overall already and is 1-1 in the BIG so far with a road win over Nebraska. I don't know if any Big 10 team besides Purdue is feeling ultra confident in being a Top 3 Big 10 team right now. The opportunity is there for the Buckeyes. They have the talent to do it.
What if we finish Top 2 in the B1G next year and get a good seed but lose a close, tough game in the Round of 32? I mean, just last Dance we lost a good, close game to a F4 team in Villanova. If Kyle hadn't had to go out, who knows what would have happened. Anything can happen in the Dance.
I understand that results matter but results encompass a lot more than what happens in terms of banners. I know that fans don't want to hear that, but in terms of firing/hiring decisions I think that has to be given consideration because you never know when you might catch the breaks you need in March and/or in conference play.
The caveat is if you're firing a guy in order to hire a guy you have the utmost confidence will help the program take the next step. That's tricky in college basketball. Nebraska thought they were getting that guy in Hoiberg, hasn't quite worked out that way for them yet. Texas is paying $5 million a year for Chris Beard, whose career might be on the rocks. Would OSU pay the necessary money to pull a guy like Nate Oats away from Bama or Tommy Lloyd away from Arizona or try to get Billy Donovan (making $6 million a year with Chicago right now) back in the college game? Color me skeptical, but I wouldn't complain.
Honestly, if we do fire Holtmann, the most realistic option that might work out for us is promote Diebler. You probably haven't gained much in terms of the coaching but it he makes the right assistant hires, Diebler could do well because of his recruiting ability. Keeping that recruiting ability at OSU as long as possible might be worth the risk of giving him his first head coaching job.
Anything can happen in the dance and while everyone points to results in the dance, I believe it is a poor metric for measuring success because of the 1-and-done format. To me, the conference performance is a far superior indicator. Unfortunately, after a great run in 2017-18, we've had 8+ losses (no more than 12 wins) in each of the last 4 seasons.
I do agree with you on the "then who else" comments. We are riding this train for another couple years minimum (thankfully with some good talent coming), so Gene won't upset the apple cart...especially not with a top 30 program that is cleanly run (which to him I fear might be adequate). Personally, I'd much rather see Holtmann succeed as he's very likeable. I'm just beyond frustrated with the consistent "wait 'til next year" mentality when year over year has brought a ~12-8 type Big Ten season with some tremendous wins but some bad, bad losses to even those out. But even if he is replaced, the last coaching search showed us that OSU is looking for an affordable top 30 coach with some upside, not a top 12 coach to match our program history.
Fair comments and obviously we share some common ground in our thoughts on this.
It will be really interesting to see what becomes of the conference race once we add UCLA and USC. The conference race is already skewed because of the great variance in schedules, it's only going to get worse. So while a good team should be able to do relatively well in the conference still, man, scheduling is going to be such a huge part of who wins the conference unless there really is that team that is so good they can get separation from everyone even while having one of the tougher conference schedules.
Shookster, I would love to see a breakdown through the six years of Holtmann teams fare against better competition and also break it down in the months of January, February and March when he has a lead and squanders it. I would be curious about win loss percentages. Holtmann's teams seem to trend good to decent in the early months and go from decent to worse in the later months of the season.
It's no different from any other team, when they play better competition they have swoons. I think if you check any month where they've had a swoon it's because they were playing the better competition.
Lol who said I'm complaining, I was pointing out blowing leads is a problem even in wins. Because the 3 wins I listed could have easily been examples of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The only thing "shakey shakey" out here is my faith in Holtmann leading our program to a conference title or the S16
Okay, the author cites several instances of blown leads over a period of six seasons. I guess to see if this is really statistically significant -- as opposed to just an OSU fan obsessing about losing games they had a good chance of winning -- I'd like to know how common it is for most college programs to lose leads (and games) over this same period of time.
And I'm not talking about the "blue bloods" of college basketball, because that would be an unfair comparison. Just in general.
My guess is that the number isn't outlandish or out of line at all. Given the way college basketball is these days, leads in general aren't always very safe. With a shot clock and a 3 point shot, it doesn't take very long for a team to erase a 10 point lead. It's not like it was prior to the shot clock and the 3 point shot, when it would usually require more than 5 possessions to erase a lead, and the time involved would be far more significant.
Is losing a "big" lead in a game frustrating for fans? Sure. It can be one of those things that you go back over in your head, time and time again.
Is it that unusual for any given team to lose leads (and games) several times over a period of years?
That was my immediate thought too: Four blown leads out of 170 games in six seasons doesn't actually seem that bad. It's frustrating in the moment of course, but my off-the-cuff guess would be to say that having a blown lead about once a year is pretty normal compared with everybody else in college basketball.
I'd also like to see some data on how often it goes the other way: How many games in the Holtmann era have they had a double-digit deficit in the second half but came back to claim victory? If we're going to pretend like every blown lead is a coaching failure, it's only fair to also give credit for games where Ohio State battled back (e.g., being down by 15 last year against #1 Duke but coming back to win).
Also a little fun fact for everyone out there, Holtmann's 43-37 the last four years in conference play, which is actually a worse winning percentage than Thad had his last 4 years at Ohio State in conference play.
Matta was a very good coach at OSU. His physical ailments and probably mental stressors kept him on a much shorter time table though. And his benches were notoriously thin.
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
[Matta's] physical ailments and probably mental stressors...
if we're going to speculate, as you have, my guess is that the new generation of kids, and their different values, threw Thad for a loop. I suspect that they didn't react the way he expected, and also, he generally didn't play but about 8 players per game, leading to kids transferring out.
He's back coaching now at Butler, but it's too soon to tell if he has grown in that area. Have to wait and see.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
Conference is much tougher and deeper now, though, than it was Thad's last 4 years in the B1G. Which is why OSU has still been making the Dance comfortably (even to the point of being a 2 seed a couple years ago) whereas Thad's last couple years our post-seasons were losing in the 2nd round of the NIT and then not having any post-season whatsoever.
Not dissing Thad, we are talking my favorite coach ever, I would just say that trying to compare the conference records in those times is not a particularly meaningful data point. Obviously, however, it would be nice if OSU was finishing more in the Top 3 or better of the B1G rather than 4th, on average, and with no titles. Thad's last 3 seasons he finished 6th, 7th, and 10th.
Thad's % would have been a lot worse if he had to play in a big that is as deep as it is now. When he coached the bottom teams were really bottom feeders. It was generous of you to take out h. best year as well. It's nice when one cherry picks just to make an irrelevant point.
I went to '15-'16, the last time matta was above .500 in league play, 11-7. Non conf. he lost to ut-arlington, louisiana tech, memphis, virginia-the only ranked non-con.loss, and u- conn. They finished in 7th place in the big, and they won ONE game against the teams that finished higher than them. That means they won 10 games against the teams that finished worse than them. Like I said the bottom teams were really bottom feeders when he coached. The bottom feeders were so bad, osu didn't even lose a road game to any of those teams.
The league was so bad that a +4 wins (over .500) league team went to the NIT, where they barely beat Akron in OT. At home.
If you want to compare apples to apples; you really ought to use apples!
The other stat that would be interesting: How often has Ohio State COME BACK from at least a 10 point lead in a game to win? I honestly have no idea, but comparing the two statistics would certainly be fun to look at and compare.
Stupidest column ever on Eleven Warriors. Losing four ten point second half leads in six years is really no big deal in today's college basketball. Could coach have done some things better... of course... we all could, but given the shipwreck Matta left, the results have been pretty darn good and getting better.
Blown leads are a part of basketball. Happens all the time, to every program. It's a game of runs. A lot of our fans seem to lack the ability to put OSU's strengths and weaknesses into perspective with how college basketball is, by and large, for most programs. We are far from the only team that suffers some of the issues we've seen the past few years, and I am not just talking about bad or average teams, either.
That said, has Holtmann's program been a little more susceptible to the blown lead issue than some of the better teams? I would say yes, and I would say it comes down to not having reliable backcourts that can handle pressure and dictate flow of the game. We've had some good backcourt players like Duane Washington Jr. and Malaki Branham, but not much in the way of cool-and-steady guards, floor generals, etc. Guys like Bruce Thornton, Roddy Gayle, and Taison Chatman are promising for the future of OSU's guard play in those areas, so I think taking a pessimistic angle on this issue is a disservice to the quality of the players coming into the program.
I think this article is fine, overall, though the title and some of the statements are a little clickbait-y. I will say that I don't know if I agree with the statement that Holtmann's teams are showing up "every year with a lot of talent." While player development in the program is good and I think we got close to max performance out of guys like Washington (former 3-star) and Young and both Wessons and are getting there now with Key, we haven't had much overlap between our best high 4-star talents. KBD and Tate for one year before Kaleb fully bloomed. T15 2019 class fell apart before it could become something here, other than EJ. EJ and Malaki together for one year (and precious little talent aside from them). Imagine Malaki on this year's team. And so on. Talent on the team has been decent-to-good for a power program, partly because of development and partly due to having a few really good 4-stars like KBD and EJ and Malaki, but the quality depth of talent on this team has not typically been as good as other power conference T25-ish teams.
One could argue that this season's team is pretty talented and has some of that quality depth, but the highest ceiling talent on the team are all freshmen. Next season--depending on who we return and health and all that--could be a very talented team with some of that talent actually having experience. And I also have a lot of confidence in sophomores Thornton and Gayle with T50 Taison Chatman backing them up to be a backcourt that can control the ebb and flow of games better than any other backcourt we have had in the Holtmann era.
Three major problems I see contributing to these outcomes:
1. We are not using timeouts to curb runs by the opponents and when we do, we are too late on timeouts. As an example OSU led Rutgers 31-23. Rutgers made a layup, OSU turned it over, Rutgers made a layup. (I'd like to see a timeout called here). OSU tuned it over again, Rutgers missed a 3, OSU turned it over again. Rutgers made a layup with 1:21 to go. The score was now 31-29. (Still no timeout). In 3 minutes of basketball, OSU failed to score, turned it over on 3 straight possessions, and Rutgers scored on 3 of 4 straight possessions, yet no timeout was called. I don't care that there was a TV timeout preceding all this - you HAVE to use timeouts to control the game and shift strategy or minimally curb momentum when events like those listed occur. Izzo is a wiz at this...if the opposition gets even a flicker of a flame, he squashes it with a timeout.
2. We lack any semblance of an offense and our preferred in-bounds play on the offensive end is to lob it to one of our stationary players. When it comes to crunch time and the opposition is closing, their defense improves. Rather than relying on good screens and great execution to get a good look at a scoring opportunity, we rely on isolation and players making difficult shots.
3. Compounding that second concern, not only do we rely on isolation, but there seems to be a strategic stall on offense when we have the lead late in the game. I'm cool with stalling if we are up 10 with 18 seconds to go, but Holtmann seems to go into offensive stall mode with an 8 point lead and 2-3 minutes to play. It's as if rather than putting the score out of reach, his preference would be for the clock to run faster so that we can escape. That's an aversion of clutch time. The great teams and coaches live for clutch time!
To have top adjusted offensive efficiency teams this season and the past several without running "any semblance of an offense," man, we must be loaded with 5-stars (we're not, not a single one since Holtmann has been here and haven't had that many T100 players, either) or our luck factor must be historic. And after watching Kyle Young get concussed like 9 times, I am going to vote "nah" on the latter.
I said it up-thread in more detail but just because it's a simple offense doesn't mean it's a bad offense. We tend to get our guys shots they can make (look at some of the shot quality statistics like ShotQuality.com, right now we are squarely in the Top 40 nationally), we play with a conducive pace to our team make-up in the half-court, we maintain floor spacing and use ball screen and cutting actions pretty fluidly.
We have some very good shooters/scorers, but I maintain that we struggle to generate quality looks in crunch time. Is top 40 nationally adequate? Maybe with a top 20 D...? But ultimately is that where the top 15 programs are landing? It appears most pepper the top 20 for those quality stats.
Our off-the-ball movement is horrible. I get that the strategy is to clear the floor and rely on a high screen or iso to generate a matchup. But in crunch time, you need to generate quality shot opportunities, not just favorable matchups. Too often we fail to even run in-bounds plays that generate an open look. I know the transfer portal creates roster turnover, but if Baker Mayfield can functionally understand the Rams' plays seemingly overnight, can't college kids be expected to execute a handful of key plays?
Ohio State is a solid top 15 basketball program all-time and has been functioning as a borderline top 25-top 30 program under this staff. Our conference title drought is now at 10 years. We haven't seen the second weekend of the NCAA in a decade. Are there signs of promise? Sure. But are there concerns that have become trends? Yes. Crunch time performance is one of those and the looks our offense has been generating the past several years in crunch time is frustrating, whether it's D. Washington going 1:1 game after game or an in-bounds pass to Zed deep in the corner.
What one has done historically has nothing to do with today. Further, it could easily be said a top 30 today is a top 15 in the 60's since there are many more teams AND players today that play good quality bb. Take a look at the top 25 and see how many were there in the 60's. A lot of new names that weren't there yesterday.
I don't get the we deserve better mantra. Hell, there's at least 100 teams trying to do what osu is doing and doing it at the same level of committment. But because one is a fan of this particular team, the fan deserves more? IU basically hasn't done squat the last 30 years and their pedigree could easily be argued to be far superior to osu's. I guess fans just like to hear themselves sqauwk so they feel better for 5 minutes or until the next time their team loses to a team they shoulda beat. Which is apparently, all of them. lol
You seem way more knowledgeable than me on the technicalities of our offense, but I wonder if the folks that complain about our offense would prefer one similar to Michigan State. They seem to run more specific, and probably more complicated, offensive sets.
Yet Sparty's offense (and I know Malik Hall has been missing) is currently #37 in KenPom. They were #31 last season and #98 the year before that. The Bucks are currently #3. They were #13 and #4 the last two seasons.
Now Sparty had back to back Top 10 offenses when Cassius Winston was running the show with multiple NBA teammates. So maybe with offense it is more about the Jimmys and the Joes and less about the Xs and Os.
Regardless, other than one outlier year (with zero Top 60 recruits on the roster), the Bucks have had Top 25 offenses every season under Holtmann. I just don't understand why fans care so much how that is getting accomplished.
It's the defense that needs to grow on this team. And hopefully with the more time this team plays together, and possibly getting two versatile defenders (Ice and Eugene) back in the mix soon, the defensive performance will improve.
It's less about the "how" on offense and more about the "when."
When we need critical buckets down the stretch we struggle to generate good looks (think D. Washington going 1:1, Zed Key getting the ball in the corner, or us settling for a contested 3). That Akron game last year with the in-bounds play is the one exception that immediately comes to mind.
And maybe it is simply preference, because I love Izzo's command of the game rather than high screen, iso, and 3 guys standing.
Akron is the only game that came to mind? We literally just played a game where we ran a set that gave our leading scorer a pretty makeable mid range jumper with 2 seconds left. And he made it.
But I get not liking the style. You seem to have a lot of company in that respect.
There's a huge difference between stalling and running clock. First of all, with a 30 second clock, stalling is forever gone. A coach would have to have the best talent in america to not run half the clock with a lead and 2-3 minutes left in a game.
3 minutes would be 6 possesions at 30 secs. each, 12 possessions at 15 secs. 18 poss. at 10 secs. Would you really want the opponent to have an additional 6 to 9 attempts to score? Even the team behind can take 10-15 secs. to get a shot off-even when they are in hurry up mode. But you expect osu to run offense at the pace of the team behind? That makes no sense. Luckily not a coach in america would agree with you. Apparently you haven't heard the expression the clock is the enemy when a team has the lead.
Just for the record, izzo is a flicker of a flame of his former self as a coach. He's way past his prime. I'd be shocked if he's coaching 3 years from now. I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone in the next year or two.
That's the Coach Cooper syndrome in a nutshell. A tight asshole.
And Coach Holtmann is always one year away. Kind of like Marty Schottenheimer the football coach. Maybe 6-7 times he either lost in the conference championship game or farted away 1st seed in the playoffs. He did that with three different teams - Browns and Chiefs and Chargers - over a fifteen year period. Can't blame a team for that.
Do you feel better now, Johnny? Al Maguire used to say that there were two humps a team needed to get over - the 7 point lead and the 11 point lead. That was probably true in Coach Maguire’s era. Today, with the 3 point shot and officiating which either consciously or subconsciously allows the trailing team to play exceeding physical, I’d update Maguire’s humps to 12 and 20. I’m pretty sure that the results of last year’s Duke game at Ohio St. musta contributed to Coach K stepping down. Because the officials pretty much let Ohio State get away with a free-for-all. The free throw disparity of last Saturday’s game against NC pretty much say that the roles were reversed this time. Let’s see how this young team does this year before we step off the cliff.
I find your Coach K take kind of funny, isn't very convenient that the first year he is retired that NCAABB enacts a flopping technical foul, something that his teams were notorious for. First it was the arc to prevent charges under the basket, that wasn't good enough, now they invent an administrative technical foul for flopping.
NCAABB enacts a flopping technical foul . . .. First it was the arc to prevent charges under the basket, that wasn't good enough, now they invent an administrative technical foul for flopping.
Yes, it's interesting. One wonder's if the NCAA's intent was just to stop the "acting", but also if they wanted to keep the refs from looking bad when they didn't call a charging foul. The technical call shows the crowd that the refs are not appearing to let the game get out of control. Both changes make it harder to defend, giving the offense an advantage. (Much like letting a team get more physical on defense late in the game — not to mention swallowing their whistles of the final seconds of a game!)
It seems, however, that some refs either have a hard time telling when a charge actually occurs, or are just making calls based on an impression (however vague) that a rule was broken, and that the defender was most likely in the wrong.
Finally, Coach K departed just when NIL became one more thing that coaches had to deal with.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
We definitely seem to lack the type of players to play lock down defense. Players can all have an off night shooting the basketball but defense can be played well no matter what.
My biggest concern against North Carolina was the idea that not guarding the player throwing the ball in is a good thing. Giving the inbound passer no obstacle to throw around or consider doesn’t make sense to me.
Every year we get an article like this telling us everything is okay except it's not OK. Holtmann's best team thus far was Matta kids in his first year taking over for Matta. Every year since that season we see a late-season collapse. in 2018 OSU in mid-Feburary was 16-7 over its remaining games(12 games) OSU would lose a staggering 8 in 2019 season After beating Kentucky in late December OSU found itself 11-1 feeling good about where the program was headed. It finished that season 21-10. The following season in mid-February OSU went to PSU where it won having a 7-gaming winning streak and appeared poised as one of the hottest teams in the country with a respectable 18-4 record and ended up limping into the NCAA where it got embarrassed by losing to oral Roberts in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. It finished that season with an abysmal 21-10 record. The following season OSU in late February the buckeye posted a record of 18-7. It would go on to finish the season with a putrid 2-5 record.
Ive seen this movie every season Holtmann has been at OSU. Nice guy, reps the university in the light it wants from their HC. He is not a good bench coach IMO. What you've seen out of OSU ever since he has been here is exactly what you will get this season.
Frankly, not really interested in watching a program with substandard coaching. You can hate on me all you want but the record says exactly what Im saying
The struggles you describe are basically college basketball in a nutshell. Most teams lose a lot of games every season. The timing of the losses you point out has a lot to do with conference play in the B1G being an absolute grind recently for the teams that play in it. And OSU hasn't come out of conference play relatively healthy since 2019-2020, probably our most upward trending late season team. So, of course the post-season was cancelled that year.
Holtmann in his time here has one of three P5 programs with 20 win seasons every season, and he has rarely had a top 3 talented roster in his conference let alone the nation, on top of bad injury luck and transfers and early entries... and yet our fans still claim the coaching is "substandard." Fair enough, I guess, depending on what the "standard" is. We would all like to see some higher level of achievement at some point, obviously, but also you can't take for granted the consistently high floor of the program in Holtmann's time here despite decent but not great recruiting and the injuries. If recruiting was trending downward or stagnating I'd be more pessimistic, but it's going the other direction. This season is the first time we've had at least 4 T100 guys on the roster since the 2019-2020 season (unfortunately this season they're all freshman). Next season we should have 6-7 T100 guys, many of them T60. That could make a huge difference in what our program ceiling looks like.
The timing of the losses you point out has a lot to do with conference play in the B1G being an absolute grind recently for the teams that play in it. And OSU hasn't come out of conference play relatively healthy since 2019-2020,
Up-voted your post, and have to say that I think a lot of the complaints about losses near season's end may be due to fans disrespecting OSU's opponents. There are good players and teams and good coaches in the B1G and the NCAA tournament. And D1 hoops is largely about match-ups. If OSU doesn't match up well with a team and/or one opposition player gets hot, the outcome may well frustrate fans.
One of the attractions of sport is that the underdogs sometimes win, or that good teams sometimes respond and recover from earlier subpar play, especially if the underdog gets a bit fatigued, or its confidence dips. That's sports. Nothing is guaranteed.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
OSU is approximately the 12th best basketball program all-time (some polls have had them as high as 9-10, some in the mid-teens depending on criteria), but from the initial National Championship in 1939 game to 3-straight FFs in the 1940s, to the golden era of the 60s with four FFs and a NC, to at least one top 10 AP finish in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, to Thad's success with six top 7 AP finishes in eight years, OSU has continuously re-appeared as a top 10-type program with conference (22 Big Ten titles) and tournament (11 Final Fours) results to back that. Have there been droughts and meager years? Absolutely! But for every 1995-1998, there has been a 1991, 1992, or 1999 to go with it...success frequent enough to generate those 22 conference titles and 11 FFs.
Fair enough, I guess, depending on what the "standard" is.
The standard is winning Big Ten conference titles at a conference-leading pace. That's where OSU stood when he took the job.
The drought is now 10 years and counting, half of which fall under Holtmann's tenure.
Getting excited about consistent 20 win seasons is like getting excited about fielding a consistently bowl-eligible football team that never wins a conference title and never lands a NY6 bowl. I'm willing to accept a 2008 if it means conference titles in 2006 and 2007, then three more 2010-2012. I'm not willing to accept 8 straight 20-win seasons but not winning a Big Ten title.
The point isn't that 20-win seasons are the ceiling we should expect, it's that 20-win seasons might be the floor if the recruiting stays at the current level (or improves). And if you can't look at the facts and recognize that that is a high floor for a power conference basketball program, then you aren't paying attention.
I do agree with you in the sense that it would be beyond frustrating if Holtman is here for a decade and we never win the conference or make a S16. He needs to turn the corner. I think it might happen next season and that positive momentum could get us into a better place in terms of our conference and national contention. We will see what happens. When I look at the program in its current state I see good recruiting, good culture, good player development, and pretty good (but maybe not great) coaching. At some point you would think that should materialize into some of the results we would like to see. But I also have to remind myself how cruel a mistress college basketball is. The 2010-2011 team might be the best Ohio State basketball team I will witness in my lifetime and we got a bad match-up in the Sweet 16 and played poorly and lost just barely to the one team in the whole field that had all the right tools to defend us.
There are a lot of power conference programs out there with better basketball fan support than ours who struggle to build something good or even just consistently solid (look at Louisville since losing Pitino). They swap out coaches every few years hoping the next one will be a guy that can get them to the Dance regularly. Some of these programs are in considerably more forgiving conferences than the B1G has been during Holtmann's time here. So while I certainly acknowledge that things can be better than they are and we all want that, I also know how very, very easy it could be for things to be worse.
I have cautious optimism about what this program can be under Holtmann if the current recruiting level holds. I guess many are ready to be done with this regime and willing to sacrifice some of our current young talent and the incoming recruits for a change of pace. I would love to know who they want OSU to hire. I have names that I would love, but not many of them feel realistic to me, not when we had a ranked team playing their home conference opener a couple weeks ago and they practically had to give tickets away to get a decent crowd to show up.
Honestly, I said this elsewhere, but if we fire Holtmann any time soon, giving Diebler the job might be the best move we could make.
I'm actually in 100% agreement with everything after that first paragraph. And our differences there may be a style difference - I prefer the boom and bust type program with elite talent then departures followed by a new influx of talent to the Wisconsin style of grinding out 20-win season after 20-win season. UNC and UK both have 20-win season streaks of 1 year. It's not about the floor to them, it's always about the ceiling. Now I certainly don't want a 1995-1998 with 1-win Big Ten seasons and players getting arrested, but I'm more than willing to take a 2008 or 2009 (19 and 20 wins headed into postseason) if it means legitimate Big Ten championship potential in the preceding and subsequent years.
When it comes to consistency, my concern is in-season consistency. Thad actually struggled against the blue bloods (0-4 vs. UNC, 0-3 vs. KU, 1-1 vs. both Duke and Kentucky) but rarely, rarely lost to an inferior opponent with a ranked team and his teams seemed to hit their stride going into March, generating those Big Ten titles and FFs. Holtman is 1-2 vs. UNC, 1-0 vs. Kentucky, 1-1 vs. Duke, which is awesome, but for each of those outstanding wins, his teams land 2+ headscratcher losses against weaker Big Ten teams and seem subject to multi-game regressions after the New Year.
Overall, I'm with you...the jury is still out and we sure as hell aren't changing horses anytime soon. I just want reason to believe I can be watching late February basketball with our Buckeyes competing for a Big Ten title and achieving that every few years. Consistently good year over year, but not great seems to be where our program is at right now.
I really don't get the why every one puts so much emphasis on a 20 win season, it is easy to rack up those type numbers when you schedule 6-8 paycheck games, go .500 versus out of conference games against teams that have pulse, go .500 in the league and win one or two games in the conference tournament.
I know most power conference teams load up on the pay check games, in reality you only need a few on the schedule to kick off the year. I would rather see more competitive non conference games and be forced to go 12-8 in conference to hot 20 wins.It also may help to sell more tickets and get more national exposure.
Because programs like UNC and Kentucky don’t give a damn about 20 win seasons and are willing to go boom and bust.
Better to win 2-3 Big Ten titles a decade and have 2-3 seasons of no dance than to go 20-11 every year. There is no banner for consecutive years finishing 5th in conference
I imagine Covid had a little to do with it. In '20 there was no post season, so a few less games for most teams and the next year a few less games in the non-conf and other cancellations due to Covid outbreaks. For example, in '20-'21, no team in the ACC won 20 games with most teams only playing about 21-23 regular season games.
20 wins became the standard for a reasonably successful season, when they played 27 games and didn't have conf. tourneys. 20-7 was almost a .75 winning %.
Then winning 20 games for a major league pitcher was a pretty good standard as well.
So 20 wins became a standard by which things were judged pretty successful.
BUT when a team plays 35-40 games today, 20 wins is pretty pathetic % wise.
By the same standards as yesteryear a 35 game season would have to win 26 games.
But for some reason 26 doesn't have the same ring to it-even though it's the same %.
Why folks back Holtmann is beyond belief…they bitch about Cooper and want to run Day out of town…but when it comes to Holtmann, the excuse is who are we going to get that’s better….not good…as long as this clown is at the helm ..the administration has settled for less and not serious about putting together a contender …what’s it going to take to get rid of him…a scandal?
Sadly, I think our athletic department is not merely content, but gleeful about a top 30ish basketball program that is cleanly run. "22 Big Ten titles and 11 Final Fours be damned, because 20 wins and a near-5th place conference finish are now good enough."
A third of our basketball fanbase either sees that as acceptable now as well or is convinced that Holtmann is suddenly going to jump from a 5th place, 20-win, early March exit type program year over year to a Big Ten champion, 25+ win program with deep March runs year over year. Holtmann's last four teams have each had at least 8 conference losses.
I bet izzo has more losses now than he did when thad coached too. Not that it matta's that they have two more conf. games now. I'm sure each fanbase thinks those should be 2 more wins, despite the conf. being much deeper than ever before. It doesn't matta now but 10 days ago, the big had 13 teams in the top 80, first league to do that.
The conf. will be much easier to win when the pac 10 joins. Hopefully Az. gets an invite maybe that'll get the big over the hump for a natty.
I just want a reason to get excited ….with Holtmann you know what you are going to get…mediocre season s….no BIG title and a quick exit in the tournament
The thing is, you never know what you are going to get in college basketball. I know it's easy to think that way if your program has been at a certain level for a few years, but think just for instance if Kaleb or Duane had come back for their senior seasons or if Sueing or Young hadn't gotten injured, etc. What if Malaki had been two and done like expected, what might this current team be like?
I think it's telling, in a good way, that the program has been right on the cusp of doing really good stuff since Holtmann has been here and now the recruiting is improved.
But hey, Frank Martin went to the Final Four in 2017, maybe we should hire him.
You make fair points, but to counter, every program has early departures (expected or not) and wouldn't you think if its a crap shoot, that a top 20 program would get "lucky" at least once in a while?
Holtmann deserves our support while he is here and there is reason for optimism, but at some point, results have to matter.
My points are in the context of the fact that our recruiting has not been good enough to offset the losses to the point where we still achieve the higher end results.
If we lose Sensabaugh after this season, as much as that would hurt from an offensive standpoint, next season we could still have 6 former T65 composite recruits on the roster, 3 of them sophomores. And the freshmen of that group are all currently T50 in the 247 composite.
I do agree with you about results having to matter. If we flop this season and next or don't really achieve anything, I think Gene should re-evaluate. I am not sure if he will, but he probably should.
Circumstances, whatever they may be, need to be considered... but at some point the lack of results do affect program momentum. We saw what happened with Thad at the end of his tenure.
The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s damn hard to succeed at either one but we’re blessed with a top 5 football program all-time and a top 12 basketball program all time.
It's easy to see how osu is a top fb program, but only an unrealistic osu fan would say they are a top bb program. 1 title, 6th highest winning % IN THE BIG. 31st in wins nationally. 34th in win % nationally. If those numbers were for the fb team, no one would say, they're a top 12 fb program. Just because you want them to be something doesn't mean that they are.
Some of their appearances in the ncaa are before they took the laces off the bb and the NIT was considered the National champion and by far overshadowed the ncaa-through the early 50's. The ncaa only invited 8 teams through the early 50's, so much for a National event and championship. So at least 5 of their final four appearances, or half of them in other words, prior to 1951, they were playing in the 2nd fiddle ncaa tourney.
Even if one says 1960 starts the real ncaa tournament, there were still only 16 participants, hardly a National Tournament. Hard to get in but a hell of a lot easier to win.
In this century they've been in six tourneys where they didn't lose in the 1st or 2nd round. All Matta's.
If all that success screams top 12 bb school to an osu fan, your eye doctor probably notices you see things with a scarlett hue.
Nearly every respectable publication that has rated NCAA basketball programs historically has OSU in the top 15 and second or third in the B1G depending on Illinois placement.
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Oh boy. Here we go.
Do better, Holtmann. That’s all I’ll say.
What blows me away is the team’s inability to handle the press. This is the 2nd year in a row with different personnel so that’s coaching.
Holtmann is soft?
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
Yes, he might be. We are the judge here, are we not? If we say he is soft, he is.
To someone with even the vaguest knowledge of the sport, if it happens with different personnel, it could still be the personnel. At least until they get veteran. Without ice on the floor there's only one true ball handler.
I think this article actually underplays how often Holtmann teams blow leads. I'm actually surprised it didn't happen more last year, but the game at Rutgers and the Penn State game in Indy were true Holtmann Specials. The Michigan game should count too, big halftime lead at home with Dickinson out and then they just shit their pants in the second half.
2021 Big Ten Tournament was the all timer, they're so lucky they almost won it....up 14 with 3:25 to go against Minnesota, eke out a 4 point win. Purude, up EIGHTEEN at halftime, blow the entire lead and survive in OT. Michigan, up 12 with 4 minutes to go, survive via a missed buzzer beater attempt from Michigan.
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
I'm not certain, but I'd be curious how many leads were blown once the other team started a full court press. That seems to be the Achilles heel.
To me the true Achilles heel of Holtmann teams the last 2 years (and now perhaps starting to bleed into this year) is two fold. One: the defense is flat out not even close to good enough. 2021 = 82nd ranked defense, 2022 = 111th best defense, this year = 76th best defense (improvement! lol). When you can't get any stops when you need them, you're going to lose leads. The second problem is Holtmann doesn't run any freaking offense. That's not just my opinion, that's the opinion of many I know who know the game of leatherballbounce a hell of a lot better than me. The highest level of ball I played was south suburban catholic league 8th grade in Chicago, so I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination but to me our offense is entirely predicated on guys hitting ridiculously tough shots and when things get tight at the end of games and those shots aren't falling, you're screwed twice now because you also don't have the defense to get stops. If anyone on this forum would like to chime in here on what OSU actually tries to do on offense, I would honestly love to hear it and that's not sarcasm.
Just think about all the times Duane Washington, EJ Liddell and Branham bailed us out. Those guys were SO GOOD. They will never be fully appreciated. They're the reason we had top 10-ish KenPom offenses in 2021 and 2022. I saw the same thing happening late against UNC....guys just standing around, absolutely no offense being run but Brice and Bruce were just out there hitting tough ass shots. And you have to give credit to Holtmann for recruiting these kids. But man. He's just NOT a good coach. We've got over 5 years of evidence now to back it up too.
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
His style of offense is very easy to breakdown, run a high screen and roll action to try and get a switch onto a center or get a guard / forward on the wing and drive into the foul line area. While this one player or maybe a second with the screen and roll the other three players spread out behind the three point line trying to provide space. There is minimal player and ball movement non ball side.
To be frank, I was somewhat surprised that there were not more blown double digit leads blown leading to a loss, I would like to see how more games had the blown double digit lead that they eventually won.
The offense is exceeding expectations due to the talent level of the individual players, even with some are being asked to do things that are not part of their pedigree. I look at a player like Holden, he thrived against lower level competition but has yet to find a defined place on this team. He had a long history being able to get to the foul line, he has not been able to replicate that against better competition. McNeil disappears from the offense for too long, he has these two- three bursts of offense then goes quiet for the next fifteen.
Most of us thought that Sueing would be the focus of the offense given his ability and experience, he has been far to inconsistent while Thornton and Sensabaugh have become the more dependable offensive players however they both need to some dramatic improvement on the defensive end.
Good stuff 61, thank you
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
Sueing misses WAY too many shots inside five feet.
How many jump hooks at 3 feet are missed by Zed Key
NWObuckeye
Most of them.
I’d also add the lack of bigs in the paint and the lack of a true ball handler at the end of games, although this year it appears to be a little better than last year. Frustrating as all get up.
As far as the offense, I agree that I see very little set plays being orchestrated. If our guys aren’t at the rim for a rebound, it’s a one and done quick possession and then they get burned on the transition defense. Not on a regular basis but enough to impact the games.
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
Recently, until this season Holtmann used the transfer process to get a point guard, he did not bring in a veteran point guard for some reason this year In the past he brought in CJ Walker( FSU) , CJ Jackson ( JUCO) and Wheeler ( PSU) to fill those roles.
Ice is a veteran pt gd. He started 110 out of 114 games at osu jr. at the pt.
Agree on the defense. Not nearly good enough. Holtmann's whole recruiting and coaching philosophy is predicated on building versatility and balance on both ends, so if we're not going to be T30-ish in efficiency on both ends of the floor it is really going to limit the ceiling of what Holtmann's teams can do.
His Butler teams were pretty balanced, though typically a little stronger on defense. His first team at OSU was pretty good on both ends, his second team was good on defense and bad on offense, his third team was pretty good on both ends--probably his most balanced team by the end of the season--and then the post-season was cancelled. The past two seasons we have been very good in adjusted offensive efficiency but the defense has been poor.
Defense is a point of emphasis for Holtmann, to the point where he won't play guys until they show they can be at least adequate on that end. But the roster the past few seasons hasn't given him a lot of options, or I should say he hasn't given himself the best options in terms of how he built the roster. Not a lot of two-way players outside of EJ and Kyle when Kyle's head was clear and he was hitting shots. Even a guy like Malaki, who was great on offense, was a defensive liability. I am hopeful that with the current recruiting we are bringing in a little more two-way play, but I do think that even with our personnel being what it was the past two seasons, we should have been at least somewhat better than we were on our defense. So I do have some concerns about Holtmann's defensive scheme getting a little stale or maybe he's not adapting it enough to his personnel or not teaching it well enough, I just don't know. Whatever the issue is, it needs to get fixed.
Holtmann/Pedon and now Holtmann/Diebler teach a pretty simple but effective offense. It's basically about spreading the floor and running ball screen actions to get the match-ups you want on offense. I would say the basic form of it is something that a LOT of college basketball teams use because it lets players play without trying to dictate a lot of set actions or floor coaching or have some sort of elaborate motion offense scheme in place. When it is getting harder and harder to keep a roster together and having a core unit of guys who can grow together in a system, it gets more and more difficult to run those types of offenses (and recruit to them) effectively. The adjusted offensive efficiency numbers don't lie--outside of one season, Holtmann's offenses here have done a pretty good job of getting his guys shots they can make. While it may be simple and allow freedom to the players, I think Holtmann and his assistants seem to do a good job of teaching the guys how to play it well, unselfishly, while maintaining good floor spacing, and also flexible for the insertion of cutting actions and certain called plays within the flow of it. They also do a good job of getting the team to play it at a controlled pace in the half court (when not getting pressured, lol) and they really do coach shot selection.
I think Wright's Nova is the optimal example of what Holtmann would kinda like OSU's offense and defense to look like. He hasn't yet had a overall talent level roster anywhere close to the best Nova teams, but it's possible we are getting there if we can get a decent overlap between our 2022 and 2023 classes and can maintain a similar level of recruiting for the subsequent classes.
the empire never ended
You have to back to the coaching they are getting at the high school / AAU ball level. Very few coaches stress playing good defense, everyone wants the offensive, highlight reel play that they can put on some tape sent to a recruiter. The coaches don't use the bench enough when a player is putting out minimal defensive effort. It is also not an issue with individual defense and also a team issue as well. It takes time to develop good team defense, you aren't getting that when you don't spend much time practicing and teaching compared to the amount of time in actual games.
Most teams don't spend much time running or breaking presses in practice either, as we have seen first hand an effective press defense when used either the entire game or for short periods can be very disruptive to a team.
I think most fans would agree that this would be ideal. I also think it’s unlikely here at OSU. A lot of players seem to look at the brand OSU as a stepping stone to loftier goals. So the NBA is the ceiling and the best players want to get there as quickly as possible. Thad Matta had some teams like that but he also had a balance with guys who stayed for many years, like Diebler and Aaron Craft for example.
Holtman’s offenses are not difficult to run if you have guys that are actually willing to put in the time to get the routines down and timing issues and passes, things like that. However, Holtmann seems to get in his own head at times and uncertainty carries over into the games
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
It's nice to see a reasonably well thought out breakdown instead of just blatant criticism.
I think the defensive issue is simply athleticism and believe it or not height. Until this recent uptick in recruiting the athleticism was lacking, not every player but it wasn't evident players 1-8. Since he's been here, it's been one of the smaller teams in the league as well. 6-8, 6-9 centers don't cut it in big boy ball, especially when they aren't elite athletes. Sueing is stout but isn't real athletic or a great ball handler. But when he's your tallest forward, that hurts defensively and with rebounding. Look at how the new center 6-11 moves, night and day. When they get 6-8 to 6-10 forwards and 6-11 to 7ft+ centers, and 6-6 and taller off guards the D will magically appear. They look like they are already better athletes.
The elder wesson was a better defender than sueing, why? He doesn't appear to be a better athlete. The younger wesson was a better defender than key, same ? Want to, smarter defensively? I'd say it's some of both. If it were just scheme, he wouldn't have had some good defensive teams already.
I agree on the athleticism, we typically were lacking good quickness at 2-3 guys of the 5 in our line-ups the past couple seasons. We have some better athleticism on this team than maybe the past couple years but difficult to put it all on the floor at the same time and maintain the offense and experience level (and the experience/BB IQ is certainly a factor in the defense, too, as you pointed out).
I don't necessarily agree on the height but I can agree insomuch as when height equals length. Length is what allows you to guard horizontally as well as vertically and in modern basketball you need to have that side-to-side ability, you can't just park tall dudes next to the basket. Key has good length and if he was a little lighter on his feet I think he would be a really good defender now that the mental aspect of his game is catching up on that end. But he is not a plus athlete, so that goes back to the first point. Likekele has exceptional length and solid athleticism and a desire to defend, which goes a long way. He is by a huge margin our most versatile defender and we miss him on that end. I don't mind him guarding 1-4 and think he could even guard the 5 in a pinch. That's a real asset.
I think Holtmann tends to recruit a little smaller on the PF side of things because he wants switchability and agility with his forwards and it's a little harder to get those things as the guys start getting 6'8 or taller. At the same time he'd prefer they have some offensive versatility, too. So you get forwards that have all that and are taller, you are talking one-and-done types that usually go to the blue bloods.
Though 6'6-6'7ish, I think Middleton and Royal are great gets for Holtmann's system as forwards. Both guys are long, Middleton is really light on his feet and gets after it on defense, Royal has a physical frame and motor but also plays with some finesse, Middleton can handle the ball and pass and shoot a bit, Royal has a pretty developed offensive game and can post up. There will be a learning curve on defense, particularly with Royal, but I think we are getting close to seeing, finally, the kind of line-ups Holtmann has wanted to have at OSU. Even if Sensabaugh is one and done, if we have Thornton, Gayle, Chatman, Holden, Brown, Middleton, Royal, Key, and Okpara next season, that theoretically gives Holt a lot to work with in terms of fielding two-way line-ups.
the empire never ended
Criticizing the D is legit, it hasn't been good for a couple years. But the offense is 4th, after the nc game. But once one gets an opinion it's hard to get away from it. You see what you want to see.
You are using close wins in which they had big leads as part of your argument?
If so, I'll throw out Holtmann Year 2 being down 20 with 13 mins left against Wisky without Kaleb Wesson. Bucks force OT. That same Big 10 tourney the Bucks were down 19 in the first half and down 13 midway thru the 2nd half and forced OT against #1 Illinois. Down 20 at Mackey Arena in the 2nd half only to lose by a Jaden Ivey buzzer beater. And these are the close losses. They have had double digit deficit wins over Duke, Rutgers, @Iowa, @Purdue, etc as well.
I do think it has happened to us, at least the last 2-3 years, more than we have come back against others. But I think that mainly goes to defense. Just look at the UNC game. The offensive execution was there. Zed hits a wide open 3 to go up 2. UNC gets an easy lay up. The Bucks run a nice set, same as the Rutgers game when Brice went too far deep and got his shot blocked, and this time Brice nails the mid range jumper. And we all know how the last 2 seconds went. That KenPom defense needs to be in the 30s or better to be a Big 10 title contender. If it remains in the 70s-80s, we are playing with fire and need the offense to remain super efficient, which is hard to given they are #5 right now.
As far as the offense goes, I don't buy that osu runs no offense and they just make difficult shots. They've been a Top 25 offense in 4 of 5 seasons and are #5 right now. Over 5 seasons, they have two undrafted free agent NBA players, one late 1st rounder, and two 2nd rounders. The blue bloods have 2-5 first rounders every year. 5 NBA players in 5 years is a great step for the program, but it's not a crazy amount of top end talent given that none were lottery picks and only one was a 1st rounder.
I do think they have relied too much on 2-3 offensive options in the Holtmann era and that maybe hurts them at the end of games sometimes. I feel like they are in better shape this year as I think they have 5 decent to great late game options in Key, McNeil, Thornton, Sueing, and Sensabaugh with Holden and Gayle as possibilities later in the season.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
Yeah if the defense is better we're probably not having this conversation, I'll agree with you there.
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
Not that efficiency numbers are everything, but the last 2 seasons (and so far this year), osu is basically a mirror image of Iowa as far as KenPom offensive (great) and defensive (not great) efficiency numbers.
Fran McCaffery has been a head cooch for 27 years, 13 at Iowa, so basically twice as long as Holtmann overall and in the Big 10. He has zero Sweet 16s.
Bucks' defensive #s need to look more similar to Holtmann's 1st 3 years: top 30 each year. I know we had no Sweet 16s in those years as well but one tourney got cancelled and Holtmann's 2nd team had hardly any offensive talent. The defenses on all of those teams were good enough to be 2nd weekend teams.
Offense has been better than expected given all the new faces. Defense needs to get quite a bit better.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
I am not sure Iowa is the program we want to be compared with.
I think I've been pretty neutral on the Holtmann debate. I'm still positive on this years team, but results matter. Expectations weren't particularly high for this group, but a couple of the frosh have clearly been better than anticipated (at least nationally). The transfers and Sueing need to pick up their play as we gear up for conference play. If we aren't .500 or better in the B1G this year, next year should be get past the S16 or lose your job year.
I wasn't comparing them in a positive way. I was saying having a Top 15 offense but a pretty weak defense (Top 75 or worse) tends to not work in the NCAA tourney. And that's what a lot of Fran's teams look like on paper and what osu has looked like the last 2 years.
I thought that was clear from my post. My bad. And I agree if they don't make a deep run this year, there will be a lot of pressure next season. But there is still a long way to go. To each their own, but I am pretty happy with how this team has looked after 10 games with so many new players and a starter missing for 2 games and one of our 2 remaining returning vets missing all season. I'm thought going to think about that possible scenario until March plays out for this year's team.
I know a lot of the fan base is already doom and gloom and is ready to write off this team already. But I think this roster is built better for postseason success than the last two years. But they obviously need to get and stay healthy and progress, especially on the defensive end.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
Fair enough. I saw the Iowa comparison and just thought thats not the program I am looking to be comparable with.
I am still excited about what this team could become. As I mentioned in other posts, there is reason to be optimistic about this team. I'd say the first 10 games have been OK. The NET rankings are fluid, but so far we are 0-3 in Q1 games. Could have beaten UNC, coulda lost to Rutgers. We'll see how the rest of the year plays out, but my assumption was based on in playing out how the metrics suggest (somewhere betwee 11-9 and 9-11) which would make us bubble type team. If that happens, I think next year (Hotlmanns 7th in the program) needs to produce results that are better than what we've seen.
To Nomatta's point, I get that the tournament is a bit of a crapshoot and upsets happen, but it will be Holtmanns 6th attempt here and you'd expect in that time that either you'd have advanced as the favorite or been the team to pull an upset to get to the S16. How many years do you think you should give a coach to meet what I think what are pretty reasonable goals of making it that far in the dance? I like Holtmann and the staff, but at some point the results speak for themselves and you have to either redefine your expectations for the program, or find someone who will meet the ones you've set. I think 7 years is enough time to show what you can do. He's improved the recruiting, now its time to get results.
To that point, I would hope that if we fire a coach for not making the S16 enough or whatever, that we would hire a coach that has proven he can do better (or maybe Diebler).
When people mention Jeff Boals, I swear...
the empire never ended
Barring an emergency scenario which no one can imagine, there's a zero % chance they hire a head coach without head coaching experience. You think they're nd or something?
I've made myself clear on h. I think he's a great coach. He's a keeper.
But on the outside, my favorite coach is oats, I was curious to see what he'd do once he got to buma. The exact same thing he did at buffalo. He's had an impressive career.
Yeah, I like Oats a lot and his personality isn't as off-putting as Musselman's, lol.
the empire never ended
I get that the metrics expect us to be a .500 team in the Big 10. But what did we think the metrics would think after the first 6 weeks of the season with 4 Frosh and 3 transfers and one of our key vets not playing competitive basketball for a year?
I get we could be Purdue. But even they had quite a bit more continuity than we did.
On the one hand, I'm not super confident we will beat those metric predictions and end up being a 13-7 to 15-5 type Big 10 team. But on the other hand, my predicted Big 10 Champ (Illinois) is 0-2. The media's Big 10 darling (Indiana) has 3 double digit losses overall already and is 1-1 in the BIG so far with a road win over Nebraska. I don't know if any Big 10 team besides Purdue is feeling ultra confident in being a Top 3 Big 10 team right now. The opportunity is there for the Buckeyes. They have the talent to do it.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
What if we finish Top 2 in the B1G next year and get a good seed but lose a close, tough game in the Round of 32? I mean, just last Dance we lost a good, close game to a F4 team in Villanova. If Kyle hadn't had to go out, who knows what would have happened. Anything can happen in the Dance.
I understand that results matter but results encompass a lot more than what happens in terms of banners. I know that fans don't want to hear that, but in terms of firing/hiring decisions I think that has to be given consideration because you never know when you might catch the breaks you need in March and/or in conference play.
The caveat is if you're firing a guy in order to hire a guy you have the utmost confidence will help the program take the next step. That's tricky in college basketball. Nebraska thought they were getting that guy in Hoiberg, hasn't quite worked out that way for them yet. Texas is paying $5 million a year for Chris Beard, whose career might be on the rocks. Would OSU pay the necessary money to pull a guy like Nate Oats away from Bama or Tommy Lloyd away from Arizona or try to get Billy Donovan (making $6 million a year with Chicago right now) back in the college game? Color me skeptical, but I wouldn't complain.
Honestly, if we do fire Holtmann, the most realistic option that might work out for us is promote Diebler. You probably haven't gained much in terms of the coaching but it he makes the right assistant hires, Diebler could do well because of his recruiting ability. Keeping that recruiting ability at OSU as long as possible might be worth the risk of giving him his first head coaching job.
the empire never ended
Anything can happen in the dance and while everyone points to results in the dance, I believe it is a poor metric for measuring success because of the 1-and-done format. To me, the conference performance is a far superior indicator. Unfortunately, after a great run in 2017-18, we've had 8+ losses (no more than 12 wins) in each of the last 4 seasons.
I do agree with you on the "then who else" comments. We are riding this train for another couple years minimum (thankfully with some good talent coming), so Gene won't upset the apple cart...especially not with a top 30 program that is cleanly run (which to him I fear might be adequate). Personally, I'd much rather see Holtmann succeed as he's very likeable. I'm just beyond frustrated with the consistent "wait 'til next year" mentality when year over year has brought a ~12-8 type Big Ten season with some tremendous wins but some bad, bad losses to even those out. But even if he is replaced, the last coaching search showed us that OSU is looking for an affordable top 30 coach with some upside, not a top 12 coach to match our program history.
Fair comments and obviously we share some common ground in our thoughts on this.
It will be really interesting to see what becomes of the conference race once we add UCLA and USC. The conference race is already skewed because of the great variance in schedules, it's only going to get worse. So while a good team should be able to do relatively well in the conference still, man, scheduling is going to be such a huge part of who wins the conference unless there really is that team that is so good they can get separation from everyone even while having one of the tougher conference schedules.
the empire never ended
Shookster, I would love to see a breakdown through the six years of Holtmann teams fare against better competition and also break it down in the months of January, February and March when he has a lead and squanders it. I would be curious about win loss percentages. Holtmann's teams seem to trend good to decent in the early months and go from decent to worse in the later months of the season.
BuckeyeYankee
It's no different from any other team, when they play better competition they have swoons. I think if you check any month where they've had a swoon it's because they were playing the better competition.
Shakey shakey shookster, it takes an icredible person to complain about wins.I used to think mercurical now I'm thinking bi-polar, am I close?
Lol who said I'm complaining, I was pointing out blowing leads is a problem even in wins. Because the 3 wins I listed could have easily been examples of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The only thing "shakey shakey" out here is my faith in Holtmann leading our program to a conference title or the S16
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
Lmao- this title is beautiful
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
Okay, the author cites several instances of blown leads over a period of six seasons. I guess to see if this is really statistically significant -- as opposed to just an OSU fan obsessing about losing games they had a good chance of winning -- I'd like to know how common it is for most college programs to lose leads (and games) over this same period of time.
And I'm not talking about the "blue bloods" of college basketball, because that would be an unfair comparison. Just in general.
My guess is that the number isn't outlandish or out of line at all. Given the way college basketball is these days, leads in general aren't always very safe. With a shot clock and a 3 point shot, it doesn't take very long for a team to erase a 10 point lead. It's not like it was prior to the shot clock and the 3 point shot, when it would usually require more than 5 possessions to erase a lead, and the time involved would be far more significant.
Is losing a "big" lead in a game frustrating for fans? Sure. It can be one of those things that you go back over in your head, time and time again.
Is it that unusual for any given team to lose leads (and games) several times over a period of years?
Probably not.
That was my immediate thought too: Four blown leads out of 170 games in six seasons doesn't actually seem that bad. It's frustrating in the moment of course, but my off-the-cuff guess would be to say that having a blown lead about once a year is pretty normal compared with everybody else in college basketball.
I'd also like to see some data on how often it goes the other way: How many games in the Holtmann era have they had a double-digit deficit in the second half but came back to claim victory? If we're going to pretend like every blown lead is a coaching failure, it's only fair to also give credit for games where Ohio State battled back (e.g., being down by 15 last year against #1 Duke but coming back to win).
Um, how about the 2020-21 Big Ten tournament, when we we did it THREE straight games!
Honestly, I think this article unintentionally missed how frequently we are blowing 10+ point leads.
Yep, mentioned the same thing above.
Also a little fun fact for everyone out there, Holtmann's 43-37 the last four years in conference play, which is actually a worse winning percentage than Thad had his last 4 years at Ohio State in conference play.
"We didn't play with enough force tonight"
Matta was a very good coach at OSU. His physical ailments and probably mental stressors kept him on a much shorter time table though. And his benches were notoriously thin.
Buckeye football isn’t every thing on Saturday. It’s the only thing on Saturday
if we're going to speculate, as you have, my guess is that the new generation of kids, and their different values, threw Thad for a loop. I suspect that they didn't react the way he expected, and also, he generally didn't play but about 8 players per game, leading to kids transferring out.
He's back coaching now at Butler, but it's too soon to tell if he has grown in that area. Have to wait and see.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
It was well documented that he had major back pain towards the end of his career at OSU.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-basketball/news/thad-matta-health-issues-fired-ohio-state-basketball-gene-smith-replacement/1ukvoms8p6h341fluuxdaat6uf
When telling the truth becomes a revolutionary concept, it’s wise to join the revolution
Conference is much tougher and deeper now, though, than it was Thad's last 4 years in the B1G. Which is why OSU has still been making the Dance comfortably (even to the point of being a 2 seed a couple years ago) whereas Thad's last couple years our post-seasons were losing in the 2nd round of the NIT and then not having any post-season whatsoever.
Not dissing Thad, we are talking my favorite coach ever, I would just say that trying to compare the conference records in those times is not a particularly meaningful data point. Obviously, however, it would be nice if OSU was finishing more in the Top 3 or better of the B1G rather than 4th, on average, and with no titles. Thad's last 3 seasons he finished 6th, 7th, and 10th.
the empire never ended
Shakey shakey shookster
Thad's % would have been a lot worse if he had to play in a big that is as deep as it is now. When he coached the bottom teams were really bottom feeders. It was generous of you to take out h. best year as well. It's nice when one cherry picks just to make an irrelevant point.
I went to '15-'16, the last time matta was above .500 in league play, 11-7. Non conf. he lost to ut-arlington, louisiana tech, memphis, virginia-the only ranked non-con.loss, and u- conn. They finished in 7th place in the big, and they won ONE game against the teams that finished higher than them. That means they won 10 games against the teams that finished worse than them. Like I said the bottom teams were really bottom feeders when he coached. The bottom feeders were so bad, osu didn't even lose a road game to any of those teams.
The league was so bad that a +4 wins (over .500) league team went to the NIT, where they barely beat Akron in OT. At home.
If you want to compare apples to apples; you really ought to use apples!
The other stat that would be interesting: How often has Ohio State COME BACK from at least a 10 point lead in a game to win? I honestly have no idea, but comparing the two statistics would certainly be fun to look at and compare.
Sports commentary is easy: complain about the coach when the other team wins; you can't go wrong.
Never place a bet on anything that can talk.
Stupidest column ever on Eleven Warriors. Losing four ten point second half leads in six years is really no big deal in today's college basketball. Could coach have done some things better... of course... we all could, but given the shipwreck Matta left, the results have been pretty darn good and getting better.
Love the Buckeyes
Blown leads are a part of basketball. Happens all the time, to every program. It's a game of runs. A lot of our fans seem to lack the ability to put OSU's strengths and weaknesses into perspective with how college basketball is, by and large, for most programs. We are far from the only team that suffers some of the issues we've seen the past few years, and I am not just talking about bad or average teams, either.
That said, has Holtmann's program been a little more susceptible to the blown lead issue than some of the better teams? I would say yes, and I would say it comes down to not having reliable backcourts that can handle pressure and dictate flow of the game. We've had some good backcourt players like Duane Washington Jr. and Malaki Branham, but not much in the way of cool-and-steady guards, floor generals, etc. Guys like Bruce Thornton, Roddy Gayle, and Taison Chatman are promising for the future of OSU's guard play in those areas, so I think taking a pessimistic angle on this issue is a disservice to the quality of the players coming into the program.
I think this article is fine, overall, though the title and some of the statements are a little clickbait-y. I will say that I don't know if I agree with the statement that Holtmann's teams are showing up "every year with a lot of talent." While player development in the program is good and I think we got close to max performance out of guys like Washington (former 3-star) and Young and both Wessons and are getting there now with Key, we haven't had much overlap between our best high 4-star talents. KBD and Tate for one year before Kaleb fully bloomed. T15 2019 class fell apart before it could become something here, other than EJ. EJ and Malaki together for one year (and precious little talent aside from them). Imagine Malaki on this year's team. And so on. Talent on the team has been decent-to-good for a power program, partly because of development and partly due to having a few really good 4-stars like KBD and EJ and Malaki, but the quality depth of talent on this team has not typically been as good as other power conference T25-ish teams.
One could argue that this season's team is pretty talented and has some of that quality depth, but the highest ceiling talent on the team are all freshmen. Next season--depending on who we return and health and all that--could be a very talented team with some of that talent actually having experience. And I also have a lot of confidence in sophomores Thornton and Gayle with T50 Taison Chatman backing them up to be a backcourt that can control the ebb and flow of games better than any other backcourt we have had in the Holtmann era.
the empire never ended
Three major problems I see contributing to these outcomes:
1. We are not using timeouts to curb runs by the opponents and when we do, we are too late on timeouts. As an example OSU led Rutgers 31-23. Rutgers made a layup, OSU turned it over, Rutgers made a layup. (I'd like to see a timeout called here). OSU tuned it over again, Rutgers missed a 3, OSU turned it over again. Rutgers made a layup with 1:21 to go. The score was now 31-29. (Still no timeout). In 3 minutes of basketball, OSU failed to score, turned it over on 3 straight possessions, and Rutgers scored on 3 of 4 straight possessions, yet no timeout was called. I don't care that there was a TV timeout preceding all this - you HAVE to use timeouts to control the game and shift strategy or minimally curb momentum when events like those listed occur. Izzo is a wiz at this...if the opposition gets even a flicker of a flame, he squashes it with a timeout.
2. We lack any semblance of an offense and our preferred in-bounds play on the offensive end is to lob it to one of our stationary players. When it comes to crunch time and the opposition is closing, their defense improves. Rather than relying on good screens and great execution to get a good look at a scoring opportunity, we rely on isolation and players making difficult shots.
3. Compounding that second concern, not only do we rely on isolation, but there seems to be a strategic stall on offense when we have the lead late in the game. I'm cool with stalling if we are up 10 with 18 seconds to go, but Holtmann seems to go into offensive stall mode with an 8 point lead and 2-3 minutes to play. It's as if rather than putting the score out of reach, his preference would be for the clock to run faster so that we can escape. That's an aversion of clutch time. The great teams and coaches live for clutch time!
Thus endeth my lamentations.
To have top adjusted offensive efficiency teams this season and the past several without running "any semblance of an offense," man, we must be loaded with 5-stars (we're not, not a single one since Holtmann has been here and haven't had that many T100 players, either) or our luck factor must be historic. And after watching Kyle Young get concussed like 9 times, I am going to vote "nah" on the latter.
I said it up-thread in more detail but just because it's a simple offense doesn't mean it's a bad offense. We tend to get our guys shots they can make (look at some of the shot quality statistics like ShotQuality.com, right now we are squarely in the Top 40 nationally), we play with a conducive pace to our team make-up in the half-court, we maintain floor spacing and use ball screen and cutting actions pretty fluidly.
the empire never ended
We have some very good shooters/scorers, but I maintain that we struggle to generate quality looks in crunch time. Is top 40 nationally adequate? Maybe with a top 20 D...? But ultimately is that where the top 15 programs are landing? It appears most pepper the top 20 for those quality stats.
Our off-the-ball movement is horrible. I get that the strategy is to clear the floor and rely on a high screen or iso to generate a matchup. But in crunch time, you need to generate quality shot opportunities, not just favorable matchups. Too often we fail to even run in-bounds plays that generate an open look. I know the transfer portal creates roster turnover, but if Baker Mayfield can functionally understand the Rams' plays seemingly overnight, can't college kids be expected to execute a handful of key plays?
Ohio State is a solid top 15 basketball program all-time and has been functioning as a borderline top 25-top 30 program under this staff. Our conference title drought is now at 10 years. We haven't seen the second weekend of the NCAA in a decade. Are there signs of promise? Sure. But are there concerns that have become trends? Yes. Crunch time performance is one of those and the looks our offense has been generating the past several years in crunch time is frustrating, whether it's D. Washington going 1:1 game after game or an in-bounds pass to Zed deep in the corner.
What one has done historically has nothing to do with today. Further, it could easily be said a top 30 today is a top 15 in the 60's since there are many more teams AND players today that play good quality bb. Take a look at the top 25 and see how many were there in the 60's. A lot of new names that weren't there yesterday.
I don't get the we deserve better mantra. Hell, there's at least 100 teams trying to do what osu is doing and doing it at the same level of committment. But because one is a fan of this particular team, the fan deserves more? IU basically hasn't done squat the last 30 years and their pedigree could easily be argued to be far superior to osu's. I guess fans just like to hear themselves sqauwk so they feel better for 5 minutes or until the next time their team loses to a team they shoulda beat. Which is apparently, all of them. lol
Wish I could upvote this more than once.
You seem way more knowledgeable than me on the technicalities of our offense, but I wonder if the folks that complain about our offense would prefer one similar to Michigan State. They seem to run more specific, and probably more complicated, offensive sets.
Yet Sparty's offense (and I know Malik Hall has been missing) is currently #37 in KenPom. They were #31 last season and #98 the year before that. The Bucks are currently #3. They were #13 and #4 the last two seasons.
Now Sparty had back to back Top 10 offenses when Cassius Winston was running the show with multiple NBA teammates. So maybe with offense it is more about the Jimmys and the Joes and less about the Xs and Os.
Regardless, other than one outlier year (with zero Top 60 recruits on the roster), the Bucks have had Top 25 offenses every season under Holtmann. I just don't understand why fans care so much how that is getting accomplished.
It's the defense that needs to grow on this team. And hopefully with the more time this team plays together, and possibly getting two versatile defenders (Ice and Eugene) back in the mix soon, the defensive performance will improve.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
It's less about the "how" on offense and more about the "when."
When we need critical buckets down the stretch we struggle to generate good looks (think D. Washington going 1:1, Zed Key getting the ball in the corner, or us settling for a contested 3). That Akron game last year with the in-bounds play is the one exception that immediately comes to mind.
And maybe it is simply preference, because I love Izzo's command of the game rather than high screen, iso, and 3 guys standing.
Akron is the only game that came to mind? We literally just played a game where we ran a set that gave our leading scorer a pretty makeable mid range jumper with 2 seconds left. And he made it.
But I get not liking the style. You seem to have a lot of company in that respect.
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
As h. stated about the akron game, they put their big on the out of bounds passer, that let zed have his way down low. Pick your poison.
There's a huge difference between stalling and running clock. First of all, with a 30 second clock, stalling is forever gone. A coach would have to have the best talent in america to not run half the clock with a lead and 2-3 minutes left in a game.
3 minutes would be 6 possesions at 30 secs. each, 12 possessions at 15 secs. 18 poss. at 10 secs. Would you really want the opponent to have an additional 6 to 9 attempts to score? Even the team behind can take 10-15 secs. to get a shot off-even when they are in hurry up mode. But you expect osu to run offense at the pace of the team behind? That makes no sense. Luckily not a coach in america would agree with you. Apparently you haven't heard the expression the clock is the enemy when a team has the lead.
Just for the record, izzo is a flicker of a flame of his former self as a coach. He's way past his prime. I'd be shocked if he's coaching 3 years from now. I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone in the next year or two.
That's the Coach Cooper syndrome in a nutshell. A tight asshole.
And Coach Holtmann is always one year away. Kind of like Marty Schottenheimer the football coach. Maybe 6-7 times he either lost in the conference championship game or farted away 1st seed in the playoffs. He did that with three different teams - Browns and Chiefs and Chargers - over a fifteen year period. Can't blame a team for that.
Michael
You can't? It's always the coach then, right? If that's the case belicheck should never have coached again, after failing with the browns.
Do you feel better now, Johnny? Al Maguire used to say that there were two humps a team needed to get over - the 7 point lead and the 11 point lead. That was probably true in Coach Maguire’s era. Today, with the 3 point shot and officiating which either consciously or subconsciously allows the trailing team to play exceeding physical, I’d update Maguire’s humps to 12 and 20. I’m pretty sure that the results of last year’s Duke game at Ohio St. musta contributed to Coach K stepping down. Because the officials pretty much let Ohio State get away with a free-for-all. The free throw disparity of last Saturday’s game against NC pretty much say that the roles were reversed this time. Let’s see how this young team does this year before we step off the cliff.
“Holy Buckeye!”
I find your Coach K take kind of funny, isn't very convenient that the first year he is retired that NCAABB enacts a flopping technical foul, something that his teams were notorious for. First it was the arc to prevent charges under the basket, that wasn't good enough, now they invent an administrative technical foul for flopping.
Yes, it's interesting. One wonder's if the NCAA's intent was just to stop the "acting", but also if they wanted to keep the refs from looking bad when they didn't call a charging foul. The technical call shows the crowd that the refs are not appearing to let the game get out of control. Both changes make it harder to defend, giving the offense an advantage. (Much like letting a team get more physical on defense late in the game — not to mention swallowing their whistles of the final seconds of a game!)
It seems, however, that some refs either have a hard time telling when a charge actually occurs, or are just making calls based on an impression (however vague) that a rule was broken, and that the defender was most likely in the wrong.
Finally, Coach K departed just when NIL became one more thing that coaches had to deal with.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
Defense never has an off night.
We definitely seem to lack the type of players to play lock down defense. Players can all have an off night shooting the basketball but defense can be played well no matter what.
My biggest concern against North Carolina was the idea that not guarding the player throwing the ball in is a good thing. Giving the inbound passer no obstacle to throw around or consider doesn’t make sense to me.
Every year we get an article like this telling us everything is okay except it's not OK. Holtmann's best team thus far was Matta kids in his first year taking over for Matta. Every year since that season we see a late-season collapse. in 2018 OSU in mid-Feburary was 16-7 over its remaining games(12 games) OSU would lose a staggering 8 in 2019 season After beating Kentucky in late December OSU found itself 11-1 feeling good about where the program was headed. It finished that season 21-10. The following season in mid-February OSU went to PSU where it won having a 7-gaming winning streak and appeared poised as one of the hottest teams in the country with a respectable 18-4 record and ended up limping into the NCAA where it got embarrassed by losing to oral Roberts in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. It finished that season with an abysmal 21-10 record. The following season OSU in late February the buckeye posted a record of 18-7. It would go on to finish the season with a putrid 2-5 record.
Ive seen this movie every season Holtmann has been at OSU. Nice guy, reps the university in the light it wants from their HC. He is not a good bench coach IMO. What you've seen out of OSU ever since he has been here is exactly what you will get this season.
Frankly, not really interested in watching a program with substandard coaching. You can hate on me all you want but the record says exactly what Im saying
You WIN with people.
WW Hayes
The struggles you describe are basically college basketball in a nutshell. Most teams lose a lot of games every season. The timing of the losses you point out has a lot to do with conference play in the B1G being an absolute grind recently for the teams that play in it. And OSU hasn't come out of conference play relatively healthy since 2019-2020, probably our most upward trending late season team. So, of course the post-season was cancelled that year.
Holtmann in his time here has one of three P5 programs with 20 win seasons every season, and he has rarely had a top 3 talented roster in his conference let alone the nation, on top of bad injury luck and transfers and early entries... and yet our fans still claim the coaching is "substandard." Fair enough, I guess, depending on what the "standard" is. We would all like to see some higher level of achievement at some point, obviously, but also you can't take for granted the consistently high floor of the program in Holtmann's time here despite decent but not great recruiting and the injuries. If recruiting was trending downward or stagnating I'd be more pessimistic, but it's going the other direction. This season is the first time we've had at least 4 T100 guys on the roster since the 2019-2020 season (unfortunately this season they're all freshman). Next season we should have 6-7 T100 guys, many of them T60. That could make a huge difference in what our program ceiling looks like.
the empire never ended
Up-voted your post, and have to say that I think a lot of the complaints about losses near season's end may be due to fans disrespecting OSU's opponents. There are good players and teams and good coaches in the B1G and the NCAA tournament. And D1 hoops is largely about match-ups. If OSU doesn't match up well with a team and/or one opposition player gets hot, the outcome may well frustrate fans.
One of the attractions of sport is that the underdogs sometimes win, or that good teams sometimes respond and recover from earlier subpar play, especially if the underdog gets a bit fatigued, or its confidence dips. That's sports. Nothing is guaranteed.
Our honor defend, we'll fight to the end !
"it's not magic, it's fundamentals" that lead to Ohio State's success. - Ryan Day
OSU is approximately the 12th best basketball program all-time (some polls have had them as high as 9-10, some in the mid-teens depending on criteria), but from the initial National Championship in 1939 game to 3-straight FFs in the 1940s, to the golden era of the 60s with four FFs and a NC, to at least one top 10 AP finish in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, to Thad's success with six top 7 AP finishes in eight years, OSU has continuously re-appeared as a top 10-type program with conference (22 Big Ten titles) and tournament (11 Final Fours) results to back that. Have there been droughts and meager years? Absolutely! But for every 1995-1998, there has been a 1991, 1992, or 1999 to go with it...success frequent enough to generate those 22 conference titles and 11 FFs.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/the-greatest-college-b...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2017/03/29/list-of-ap-all-ti...
The standard is winning Big Ten conference titles at a conference-leading pace. That's where OSU stood when he took the job.
The drought is now 10 years and counting, half of which fall under Holtmann's tenure.
Getting excited about consistent 20 win seasons is like getting excited about fielding a consistently bowl-eligible football team that never wins a conference title and never lands a NY6 bowl. I'm willing to accept a 2008 if it means conference titles in 2006 and 2007, then three more 2010-2012. I'm not willing to accept 8 straight 20-win seasons but not winning a Big Ten title.
The point isn't that 20-win seasons are the ceiling we should expect, it's that 20-win seasons might be the floor if the recruiting stays at the current level (or improves). And if you can't look at the facts and recognize that that is a high floor for a power conference basketball program, then you aren't paying attention.
I do agree with you in the sense that it would be beyond frustrating if Holtman is here for a decade and we never win the conference or make a S16. He needs to turn the corner. I think it might happen next season and that positive momentum could get us into a better place in terms of our conference and national contention. We will see what happens. When I look at the program in its current state I see good recruiting, good culture, good player development, and pretty good (but maybe not great) coaching. At some point you would think that should materialize into some of the results we would like to see. But I also have to remind myself how cruel a mistress college basketball is. The 2010-2011 team might be the best Ohio State basketball team I will witness in my lifetime and we got a bad match-up in the Sweet 16 and played poorly and lost just barely to the one team in the whole field that had all the right tools to defend us.
There are a lot of power conference programs out there with better basketball fan support than ours who struggle to build something good or even just consistently solid (look at Louisville since losing Pitino). They swap out coaches every few years hoping the next one will be a guy that can get them to the Dance regularly. Some of these programs are in considerably more forgiving conferences than the B1G has been during Holtmann's time here. So while I certainly acknowledge that things can be better than they are and we all want that, I also know how very, very easy it could be for things to be worse.
I have cautious optimism about what this program can be under Holtmann if the current recruiting level holds. I guess many are ready to be done with this regime and willing to sacrifice some of our current young talent and the incoming recruits for a change of pace. I would love to know who they want OSU to hire. I have names that I would love, but not many of them feel realistic to me, not when we had a ranked team playing their home conference opener a couple weeks ago and they practically had to give tickets away to get a decent crowd to show up.
Honestly, I said this elsewhere, but if we fire Holtmann any time soon, giving Diebler the job might be the best move we could make.
the empire never ended
I'm actually in 100% agreement with everything after that first paragraph. And our differences there may be a style difference - I prefer the boom and bust type program with elite talent then departures followed by a new influx of talent to the Wisconsin style of grinding out 20-win season after 20-win season. UNC and UK both have 20-win season streaks of 1 year. It's not about the floor to them, it's always about the ceiling. Now I certainly don't want a 1995-1998 with 1-win Big Ten seasons and players getting arrested, but I'm more than willing to take a 2008 or 2009 (19 and 20 wins headed into postseason) if it means legitimate Big Ten championship potential in the preceding and subsequent years.
When it comes to consistency, my concern is in-season consistency. Thad actually struggled against the blue bloods (0-4 vs. UNC, 0-3 vs. KU, 1-1 vs. both Duke and Kentucky) but rarely, rarely lost to an inferior opponent with a ranked team and his teams seemed to hit their stride going into March, generating those Big Ten titles and FFs. Holtman is 1-2 vs. UNC, 1-0 vs. Kentucky, 1-1 vs. Duke, which is awesome, but for each of those outstanding wins, his teams land 2+ headscratcher losses against weaker Big Ten teams and seem subject to multi-game regressions after the New Year.
Overall, I'm with you...the jury is still out and we sure as hell aren't changing horses anytime soon. I just want reason to believe I can be watching late February basketball with our Buckeyes competing for a Big Ten title and achieving that every few years. Consistently good year over year, but not great seems to be where our program is at right now.
I really don't get the why every one puts so much emphasis on a 20 win season, it is easy to rack up those type numbers when you schedule 6-8 paycheck games, go .500 versus out of conference games against teams that have pulse, go .500 in the league and win one or two games in the conference tournament.
I know most power conference teams load up on the pay check games, in reality you only need a few on the schedule to kick off the year. I would rather see more competitive non conference games and be forced to go 12-8 in conference to hot 20 wins.It also may help to sell more tickets and get more national exposure.
If it is so easy, why have only 3 out of 351 programs been able to do it each of the last 5 years?
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
Because programs like UNC and Kentucky don’t give a damn about 20 win seasons and are willing to go boom and bust.
Better to win 2-3 Big Ten titles a decade and have 2-3 seasons of no dance than to go 20-11 every year. There is no banner for consecutive years finishing 5th in conference
I imagine Covid had a little to do with it. In '20 there was no post season, so a few less games for most teams and the next year a few less games in the non-conf and other cancellations due to Covid outbreaks. For example, in '20-'21, no team in the ACC won 20 games with most teams only playing about 21-23 regular season games.
20 wins became the standard for a reasonably successful season, when they played 27 games and didn't have conf. tourneys. 20-7 was almost a .75 winning %.
Then winning 20 games for a major league pitcher was a pretty good standard as well.
So 20 wins became a standard by which things were judged pretty successful.
BUT when a team plays 35-40 games today, 20 wins is pretty pathetic % wise.
By the same standards as yesteryear a 35 game season would have to win 26 games.
But for some reason 26 doesn't have the same ring to it-even though it's the same %.
Might as well dumb down sports as well.
You read this article and you thought it said everything was okay?
Let me try reading comprehension of what you said. In the last 23 years, you've enjoyed 6 seasons?
Or was that overly optimistic?
A lot of that going around.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tailgate Fare Historical Archive
Why folks back Holtmann is beyond belief…they bitch about Cooper and want to run Day out of town…but when it comes to Holtmann, the excuse is who are we going to get that’s better….not good…as long as this clown is at the helm ..the administration has settled for less and not serious about putting together a contender …what’s it going to take to get rid of him…a scandal?
NWObuckeye
Sadly, I think our athletic department is not merely content, but gleeful about a top 30ish basketball program that is cleanly run. "22 Big Ten titles and 11 Final Fours be damned, because 20 wins and a near-5th place conference finish are now good enough."
A third of our basketball fanbase either sees that as acceptable now as well or is convinced that Holtmann is suddenly going to jump from a 5th place, 20-win, early March exit type program year over year to a Big Ten champion, 25+ win program with deep March runs year over year. Holtmann's last four teams have each had at least 8 conference losses.
I bet izzo has more losses now than he did when thad coached too. Not that it matta's that they have two more conf. games now. I'm sure each fanbase thinks those should be 2 more wins, despite the conf. being much deeper than ever before. It doesn't matta now but 10 days ago, the big had 13 teams in the top 80, first league to do that.
The conf. will be much easier to win when the pac 10 joins. Hopefully Az. gets an invite maybe that'll get the big over the hump for a natty.
I just want a reason to get excited ….with Holtmann you know what you are going to get…mediocre season s….no BIG title and a quick exit in the tournament
NWObuckeye
The thing is, you never know what you are going to get in college basketball. I know it's easy to think that way if your program has been at a certain level for a few years, but think just for instance if Kaleb or Duane had come back for their senior seasons or if Sueing or Young hadn't gotten injured, etc. What if Malaki had been two and done like expected, what might this current team be like?
I think it's telling, in a good way, that the program has been right on the cusp of doing really good stuff since Holtmann has been here and now the recruiting is improved.
But hey, Frank Martin went to the Final Four in 2017, maybe we should hire him.
the empire never ended
You make fair points, but to counter, every program has early departures (expected or not) and wouldn't you think if its a crap shoot, that a top 20 program would get "lucky" at least once in a while?
Holtmann deserves our support while he is here and there is reason for optimism, but at some point, results have to matter.
My points are in the context of the fact that our recruiting has not been good enough to offset the losses to the point where we still achieve the higher end results.
If we lose Sensabaugh after this season, as much as that would hurt from an offensive standpoint, next season we could still have 6 former T65 composite recruits on the roster, 3 of them sophomores. And the freshmen of that group are all currently T50 in the 247 composite.
I do agree with you about results having to matter. If we flop this season and next or don't really achieve anything, I think Gene should re-evaluate. I am not sure if he will, but he probably should.
Circumstances, whatever they may be, need to be considered... but at some point the lack of results do affect program momentum. We saw what happened with Thad at the end of his tenure.
the empire never ended
Thanks Gene!
I'm thinking he and Ryan Day are going to room together while on the unemployment line. Both are equally mediocre.
"and there he is... The Big Kat"
Should have won but didn’t. Let it go. If they continue to think about that blown lead it will beat them in the next game.
We’re a football school. Let’s just roll with that and whatever we do in basketball is just gravy.
Michael
The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s damn hard to succeed at either one but we’re blessed with a top 5 football program all-time and a top 12 basketball program all time.
I’m in the let’s not concede either camp.
It's easy to see how osu is a top fb program, but only an unrealistic osu fan would say they are a top bb program. 1 title, 6th highest winning % IN THE BIG. 31st in wins nationally. 34th in win % nationally. If those numbers were for the fb team, no one would say, they're a top 12 fb program. Just because you want them to be something doesn't mean that they are.
Some of their appearances in the ncaa are before they took the laces off the bb and the NIT was considered the National champion and by far overshadowed the ncaa-through the early 50's. The ncaa only invited 8 teams through the early 50's, so much for a National event and championship. So at least 5 of their final four appearances, or half of them in other words, prior to 1951, they were playing in the 2nd fiddle ncaa tourney.
If a school's coach organizes the first ncaa tourney and invites his team, how legit is that? I'm talking about OSU's own, Harold Olsen! https://www.sportshistoryweekly.com/stories/march-madness-ncaa-nit-colle...
Even if one says 1960 starts the real ncaa tournament, there were still only 16 participants, hardly a National Tournament. Hard to get in but a hell of a lot easier to win.
In this century they've been in six tourneys where they didn't lose in the 1st or 2nd round. All Matta's.
If all that success screams top 12 bb school to an osu fan, your eye doctor probably notices you see things with a scarlett hue.
Nearly every respectable publication that has rated NCAA basketball programs historically has OSU in the top 15 and second or third in the B1G depending on Illinois placement.
Hubert Davis outcoached Holtmann, enough said!!!!
Go away bro. You are a basketball bandwagon jumper. It is well documented.
I give criticism and accolades when both are due.
I had student tix every year form 90-94 and my senior year 94 my student tix in St Johns were first row behind visiting teams bench. It was awesome.
Ive been to Buckeyes F4 in person and ve personally met and talked to Thad Matta and Randy Ayers.
Get outa here. Well documented from you FanBoy? LOL
"Is it endemic? Is that just who the men's basketball Buckeyes are doomed to be, forever? Of course not. But changing that starts with coaching."
Cut the losses early and get a new coach.........enough said........
Saban on a cart eating cold pizza