Ohio State's regular season ended Friday night in Bloomington, Ind., with an 80-78 double-overtime victory over Indiana that fittingly capped a Big Ten season in which teams dealt with a condensed schedule.
In an effort to play the 2017-18 conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, the Big Ten moved its tournament up a week, which forced its 14 league members to play a compacted schedule that, on more than one occasion, gave teams just one day turnarounds.
On Friday, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune that the league would not pursue such a schedule again, admitting that the experiment did not go as planned. Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann was asked about Delany's comments following the victory over the Hoosiers, and said he was pleased to hear the conference will resume a more traditional schedule moving forward.
"I am glad. I am happy that he is committed to that. I get the whole idea of going to New York and having the tournament there. I understand that," Holtmann said. "But I think all the coaches would agree, it's been a challenge to manage your team and there have probably been some teams that have been affected worse than others. I am glad it is going to be more spaced and not compressed. I think that is healthy for our season and for our teams and I think it gives us the best chance moving forward."
At one point this season, Ohio State played five games in an 11-day stretch (Jan. 14 – Jan. 25). The double-overtime victory over Indiana on Friday night was a fitting end to not only Ohio State's season, but its Big Ten regular season as well, although Sunday will be the official end of the league season. By the time the final buzzer sounded in Bloomington, Ind., six different players had played 40 or more minutes, four of which wore scarlet and gray.
Leading Ohio State in minutes all season, Keita Bates-Diop played a career-high 45 minutes against Indiana, something Holtmann said he didn't want to do, but was forced to do in order to pull out the win.
"They are exhausted. We rode some guys. I didn't want to play Keita Bates-Diop 45 minutes, but I kept saying, 'Do I want to win?' He is going to have a few days off here. We rode him because we needed to," Holtmann said of his star player, who poured in 24 points and collected 14 boards against the Hoosiers. "Literally, (Jae'Sean Tate) couldn't function. That is why I had to use one of the timeouts. It was for him, because he couldn't move."
Luckily for Holtmann and his team, they will have an entire week off before taking the court at Madison Square Garden on Friday for the quarterfinal round of the Big Ten Tournament.
Holtmann said there are other areas in which his team can improve before the league tournament, but that the Big Ten regular season that his team put together – a 15-3 record that will get Ohio State at worst the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament – has already been a special year.
"I have lost three of four going into the NCAA Tournament or the Big East Tournament and played well in the Big East Tournament. The biggest thing is how you're playing, how healthy are you, what's the spirit of your team? Sometimes we can't control the way the schedule falls late," Holtmann said. "That is the most important thing. How are we play? Win or lose. We do have to get better in some areas, but it's nice to cap off a regular season (like this). 15 wins? Unbelievable."
