When the 2017-18 season was ramping up for the Ohio State men's basketball team, expectations were low not only for the team but for arguably the team’s best player, Keita Bates-Diop.
Less than a calendar year later, much has changed.
The redshirt junior forward from Normal, Ill., declared himself eligible for the 2018 NBA Draft on Monday afternoon in Columbus, just more than a week after his stellar 2017-18 season came to an end. The reigning Big Ten Player of the Year averaged 19.8 points and 8.7 rebounds in his final season as a Buckeye, skyrocketing up draft boards as Ohio State finished second in the conference and saw its season end in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The last 12 months have been a whirlwind for Bates-Diop, who said he would have never envisioned himself as a possible first-round NBA draft selection a year ago.
"We had gone through so much, and I was just coming off surgery. There was a lot of turmoil last year, and going through a coaching change, it seemed like 'When is the madness going to end?' We came together from the first moments, the first days that Coach Holtmann got on campus," Bates-Diop said. "We knew we were going to have something special and (when) we got the team together, we knew it was going to be a good year."
A good year would be an understatement considering where most had the Buckeyes, and Bates-Diop, projected at the start of the year.
As everyone by now knows, Ohio State was picked near the bottom of the Big Ten in preseason rankings, and Bates-Diop was an afterthought when it came to possible NBA draft selections. Holtmann said Monday following Bates-Diop's announcement that his team and his star player embodied one another throughout the season, exceeding the expectations that most people had for them.
“We knew we were going to have something special and (when) we got the team together, we knew it was going to be a good year.”– Keita Bates-Diop on his final season in Columbus.
"Early in the season, he was a bit of a microcosm of how we were viewed. Not a whole lot was talked about him at the next level. Full of potential, but I never saw him on any mock draft when the season got started," Holtmann said. "Maybe he was, but I didn't see him on one. I think what it speaks to is that he really worked hard in the offseason."
As the season began, it was clear that Bates-Diop's success would ultimately lead to Ohio State's success. He scored 16 or more points in eight of his first nine games of the season before getting off to a slow start in a game against William & Mary. Holtmann pulled him out of the game early due to a lack of effort, and what happened next solidified in Holtmann’s mind the potential Bates-Diop had.
Bates-Diop finished with what was at the time a career-high 27 points on 11-of-14 shooting in a blowout win, and after that, Holtmann said he had his first indication of how good the redshirt junior forward could be.
"I pulled him out of a game early in the season in the first three or four minutes of the game because he just wasn't playing as hard as he needed to play," Holtmann said. "One of you (reporters) asked him about it and I think his response was incredibly telling to me."
Bates-Diop's response on Dec. 9 when asked about being pulled in the opening minutes:
"I wasn't playing well in the first three or four minutes, and (Holtmann) treats us all equally so he pulled me. Then I got back in there and picked it up," Bates-Diop said. "It helped just to kind of reset my mind. I obviously wasn't ready to play in the first few minutes, so taking me out helped me reset my mind and then I was ready to play."
"I think we realized in that moment that this guy is going to be good," Holtmann said Monday, reflecting on that moment against William & Mary. "We realized it long before that, but it validated in our minds that he was all about the right stuff. You can't be a really good player and resist coaching. He craved coaching. It's why I think he is going to be a really good pro."
Bates-Diop said Monday that he didn't really begin thinking about the possibility of the NBA until late in the Big Ten season, when his name started to litter mock drafts. It was also around that time that his numbers began to dip slightly, as he struggled with his shot in games against Penn State, Michigan and Rutgers down the stretch.
Holtmann said it was around that same time that he decided to talk to his star player about managing his own expectations and reinvesting in the team around him for the stretch run.
"I think the last month of the season I had a conversation with Keita, when I felt he was worn down physically and I also thought maybe the weight of his decision was wearing on him a little bit," Holtmann said. "I grabbed him and just said, 'Hey, here is my reminder to just be you and to lose yourself in the team as much as possible. You will feel a lot of freedom when that happens.' I did feel it was all kind of coming together and putting a lot of stress on him. He responded really well to that."
In his final four games as a Buckeye, Bates-Diop averaged 25.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, leading Ohio State to its first NCAA Tournament win in three years and a near-comeback win over Gonzaga in the second round.
Keita Bates-Diop scored 52 points in Ohio State's two 2018 NCAA Tournament games combined. Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Bates-Diop suffered through a tough first three years in Columbus – a pair of seasons without an NCAA Tournament bid and an injury that sidelined him for all but nine games in 2016-17 – but his final season sent him out on a high note.
After all he went through, Bates-Diop said he is confident he made the right decision to play his college basketball at Ohio State and to now take the next step in his basketball career.
"The last couple of years had been down for Ohio State basketball. To do what we did, and what I did individually, to leave on that note is a bittersweet feeling but it's probably the best way to go," he said. "It was the best decision I made, to come here. I wouldn't change it for anything."
