Chris Holtmann was not named AP's coach of the year in men's college basketball this season. That particular honor went to Virginia's Tony Bennett, who history will record as the coach of the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed, and that distinction, plus what Holtmann was able to accomplish in his first season at Ohio State, is enough to make me somewhat irritated at the fact that the head coach of the Buckeyes only got four measly votes in what was assuredly a rigged campaign.
Or maybe it wasn't! It actually doesn't matter, because while I'm sort-of-kind-of annoyed at the fact that Holtmann got snubbed, the fact that I even give even the smallest amount of a damn about who won the AP men's basketball coach of the year says that something dramatically weird happened between the time that Holtmann was hired and now.
Which you're assuredly aware of. Defying expectations in the Big Ten, getting to March Madness, winning a game against a good squad... that's the story of the 2017-18 Ohio State Buckeyes, and it's a pretty great one. But before we ride off into that spring football sunset, one of the things that you might be interested in is exactly what our attitude towards the men's basketball program was just a calendar year (or less!) ago.
Last March, for example, we reported on how attendance at the Schott had been declining for several years in a row:
In 19 home games this season, Ohio State’s average announced attendance was 12,324 per game. That figure is up slightly from the 12,284 from the 2015–16 season, but if you discount the two NIT games the Buckeyes hosted that season — which averaged just 6,442 per game because, well, they were NIT games — this was the fourth-straight season in which attendance for Ohio State home games decreased. Without those two NIT games, Ohio State’s average announced attendance was 12,899 for that 2015–16 campaign.
It wasn't just a sign of a bad team that people didn't feel like shelling out their hard-earned American dollars to go see, the multi-year decline was signaling a lack of enthusiasm in the program in general. That pervasive malaise is part of what contributed to Thad Matta's downfall.
A year later, and things are looking up. Ohio State men's basketball averaged 13,495 fans in attendance for each home game this season; not a gigantic bump, but definitely one that indicates that it's always possible for the same excitement that surrounded past teams with names like Sullinger and Turner and Oden to return to Columbus.
Of course, another major issue less than a year ago was the fact that no one knew who in the hell was actually going to play for the team. Eleven Warriors talked about this in the wake of JaQuan Lyle's departure and the fact that an entire recruiting class had vanished to the land of wind and ghosts, but even more disconcerting was trying to figure out a starting lineup:
To make matters worse, there isn't much reason for optimism going forward into next season. Yes, Ohio State returns a core of players but the losses of Lyle and Thompson cannot be overstated. Additionally, the Buckeyes only have a two-man recruiting class incoming in Kaleb Wesson and Braxton Beverly. ...
Matta has built up quite a resumé for himself in Columbus, but at some point, there needs to be some positives. It's been quite some time since that's happened.
I appreciate that Tim Shoemaker didn't just post a video of himself looking at a piece of paper with the remaining roster and screaming as he ate it (as I would've done).
What I find really interesting about Tim's piece is that he more or less nailed what the starting lineup would become, and the instant reaction in the comments wasn't "hell yeah, let's go win 25 games next season," it was:
And you'll get no hate from me for that particular take! It was a reasonable reaction to what was going on with Ohio State. But the reason why we applaud that same roster in March of 2018, when in May of 2017 we were losing our minds over it, is because of the hire that was made after Matta was fired.
Chris Holtmann was officially hired on June 9th of last year. It is now March 30th. If you can tell me with a straight face that you truly believed that in that moment, given the lack of enthusiasm, player turnover, and diminishing returns in general, that you would have the attitude about Buckeye basketball that you do now, I'd call you one of the best liars that I've ever seen.
Let's call this what it is: one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the fortunes of Ohio State sports since... well, since Urban Meyer was hired.
Chris Holtmann probably isn't Urban Meyer. He also faces a lot of the same personnel issues in 2018-19 that we all believed would cripple a hypothetical Thad Matta-helmed season in 2017-18. It's also possible that attendance takes a step back, especially if next season can't generate a team as exciting as this one was (or a player as fun to watch as Keita Bates-Diop).
But man. It's been 10 months. 10 whole months between having left Ohio State men's basketball for dead and eagerly anticipating what's going to come next. Chris Holtmann, his staff, his players, and even Gene Smith (yeah I said it), were operating with the understanding that at the Ohio State University, there are no real "rebuilding years." You either win or you don't.
Last season, against the odds and in defiance of all our expectations, Holtmann and company became winners far more quickly than any of us thought possible.
