I like Holtmann. Seems like a good guy. Track record indicates an above average coach. OSU is not paying T10 or T15 basketball coach money, they are paying T25ish, and on the whole that's about what they're getting.
He has had terrible luck at OSU--with this season really taking the cake--but his inability to overcome the bad breaks is partially due to questionable recruiting and roster construction. Not sure how well most coaches could finish out a season missing 3 of their top 5, with other injuries on top of that, but Holtmann built the roster. He continued to hope that Towns would get healthy and that Kyle could stay healthy for critical junctures of a season. He waited on getting more backcourt help until Duane was definitely gone and then didn't have better options than Russell. He probably thought guys like Ahrens, Meechie, and Brown could be adequate rotation players by this point. He and Sueing underestimated the longevity of the impact of Sueing's groin injury. And so on. It's understandable stuff, but at the end of the day Holt made decisions that have forced him into now playing with a roster that is really, really not good outside of two guys.
I say all that but I do think that if Holtmann was an elite coach, he would have figured out a way to get this team playing good enough defense and utilizing the Branham/Liddell combo well enough that we wouldn't have lost 4 of our last 5 when most of those games were not against good teams. The defense is a particular red flag because Holtmann's whole approach and philosophy is predicated on versatility that creates balance and solid play on both ends of the floor. He is not about transition play or high octane offense or prototypical physical domination. So if he can't get back to T30ish defensive efficiencies, then yeah, he is not going to be a super successful coach at this level. For most of his coaching career his teams were good at defense but now have been bad two years in a row, with last season needing some ridiculous offensive showings to carry us. Last season I thought it was a personnel issue but now I am not so sure if something isn't breaking down with how Holtmann is teaching his D. It really seems like the team should have been able to improve in that area this season with player development and the addition of Wheeler... but they haven't.
But in speaking on personnel deficiencies: recruiting seems on an upward trend. However, it may be too little too late and certainly won't continue to be good if Holtmann's season and post-season results don't show any improvement soon. Once your time at a school starts getting seriously questioned, the recruiting is done. We saw that with Thad.
So, essentially, I am at the point where I'd certainly understand if Holtmann gets canned in the next year or so (though I think Gene might have to let him play out his contract to see what the 2022 class could do as sophomores). There absolutely has been a trend of his teams struggling through their conference play and rarely seem to be playing their best basketball when actual achievements are on the line (the BTT run last season the exception but then they lost to a 15 seed in the Dance that matters). However, while I'd be okay with Holtmann getting fired if the results don't improve soon... I'm pretty skeptical that OSU would actually replace him with a better coach. Though, honestly, a good coach with better injury luck would probably give us a pretty tangible upgrade in results, lol. Too bad luck isn't quantifiable.
Anyways, yeah, I am reaching a weird state of still caring a lot while somehow simultaneously indifferent to what Gene decides to do in terms of firing Holt.
