COLUMBUS — Chris Holtmann has been fired as Ohio State basketball’s head coach after seven seasons.
The decision to move on from Holtmann comes as the Buckeyes are in the middle of yet another disappointing season where they are expected to miss the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year. Coming off a loss to Wisconsin they sit at 14-11 overall and are one game out of last place in the Big Ten at 4-10.
Holtmann’s tenure in Columbus began in 2017 replacing Thad Matta who was coming off his worst two seasons as OSU’s head coach. His time started off strong with a 25-9 record finishing second in the conference with a team that featured Big Ten Player of the Year Keita Bates-Diop. But that quality regular season ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament serving as a sign of what was to come.
The Buckeyes fell in the second round again the following year before not getting the chance to compete thanks to a global pandemic in 2020. Though Holtmann has stated he thought that team was at least Sweet 16 worthy.
The following year a run in the 2021 Big Ten Tournament awarded the Buckeyes a No. 2 seed in the tournament only to be upset by 15-seed Oral Roberts. The following year resulted in another second-round upset and the program has spiraled ever since
These past two seasons were supposed to be a reset for a program optimistic about its future thanks to back-to-back top 10 recruiting classes in 2022 and 2023. Instead, Ohio State has gone 20-30 during that span becoming one of the more disappointing teams in the conference. The only positives have been the developments of a few individual players like E.J. Liddell or Duane Washington Jr. plus having one-and-dones in Malaki Brahnam and Brice Sensabaugh.
Holtmann walks away from Ohio State having gone 137–85 and 67-64 in Big Ten play. During his time the Buckeyes never won either a regular season or tournament conference championships. They also never made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
