When Chris Holtmann arrived at Ohio State in June, the roster situation was bleak.
The Buckeyes had just seven scholarship players and in the middle of the summer, it was really too late for Holtmann to address that issue with recruiting as most players were locked up.
The situation was so dire, the staff nearly turned to players from a summer rec league to add depth to the bench.
"When you're sitting in June, at one point, with seven healthy players, it's like 'whew.' I was about to ask you to come out here and play," Holtmann said to the media. "Honestly, at one point we thought about going to the rec league in the summer because of concerns about that."
Thankfully for Holtmann and the Buckeyes, it never had to come to that. Musa Jallow committed to Ohio State and reclassified to the 2017 class, Kyle Young switched his commitment from Butler and Andrew Dakich took advantage of the graduate transfer rule and came to Columbus from Michigan.
"You get Andrew (Dakich), you get Musa (Jallow) and Kyle (Young) and you feel a little bit better," Holtmann said.
In a few short months, Ohio State went from considering rec players to toppling two KenPom top-33 teams by an average margin of 19 points.
