Understandably, most Ohio State basketball fans had a lot more confidence about the Buckeyes’ chances of making deep tournament runs in March three weeks ago than they do right now.
The Buckeyes were 18-4 and a projected No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament after they beat Penn State for their seventh straight win on Feb. 18. Their Feb. 21 game against Michigan was subsequently billed as a matchup of two of college basketball’s four best teams in which Ohio State had a chance to assert itself as a national championship contender.
Instead, Ohio State is now 18-8 after finishing the regular season with four straight losses against Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa and Illinois. The Buckeyes’ offense has failed to top 68 points in each of their last three games after they had scored at least 73 points in each of their previous eight games, while their defense remains a major area of concern.
Still, the Buckeyes are ranked in the top 10 nationally and widely projected as a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament with less than a week to go until the bracket is set. And Chris Holtmann still believes in his team’s ability to compete in the postseason as it prepares to begin Big Ten Tournament play in Indianapolis on Thursday.
“I think everybody’s in a good place,” Holtmann said Wednesday. “We watched film on Sunday (from Saturday’s loss to Illinois), so normally, as you’d expect, disappointed. But a lot of good things from that game, and a lot of really outside of the Iowa game, there’s been some really good things come out of this stretch. So the guys are in a great place here, and ready to move forward in tournament play.”
Holtmann acknowledges that the Buckeyes need to clean some things up from their past four games, but he doesn’t think there are major issues that will prevent the team from being able to win in March. None of their final four regular-season games were easy matchups – Michigan, Illinois and Iowa are all currently top-five teams, and Michigan State also beat Michigan and Illinois at home during the final two weeks of the year – and other than the 16-point loss to Iowa, Holtmann was largely pleased with how Ohio State competed in those games, as none of the other three losses were by more than five points.
“We’ve gotta be better in certain areas right now,” Holtmann said. “As I mentioned after the (Illinois) game, I think we had some clean looks that we just missed that you’ve made in some of those games where you’ve closed them out. And then we had a couple poor possessions where we forced the action and then we had two defensive errors. So you’re trying to clean that up as much as possible. You’re focusing on that in film. But I think that’s it. I think we’ve just gotta be a little better in those areas. Obviously, we don’t need wholesale changes or else I think that would have been evident in terms of the score in those games. I just think we’ve gotta be better in those areas I talked about.
“I don’t look at this stretch and say, ‘Wow, we’ve had four games where we have played really, really poorly.’ That’s not been the case. I think if that was the case, I’d be much more concerned. I think our guys would be much more concerned.”
Ohio State has had more time to work on improving itself over the past two weeks, as the Buckeyes have played just one game over the last 10 days, and Holtmann said that’s helped, too – though they’ve continued to be without key players in many practices.
Specifically, Holtmann said Wednesday that Justice Sueing had not practiced at all this week after undergoing a procedure on his injured groin, though Holtmann was hopeful Sueing would be back on the court Wednesday afternoon. Kyle Young (leg soreness), Musa Jallow (ankle) and Seth Towns (knee) have also all been in and out of practices due to injuries of their own, though Holtmann said Wednesday that Young is “feeling good right now” and “everything’s fine there.”
That’s really important going into this week, where the Buckeyes could play on back-to-back days for as many as four days – depending on how many rounds they’re able to advance – and won’t have opportunities to rest banged-up players between games as they did during the regular season.
“Obviously we take it one game at a time, but I am interested to see what that would look like for us,” Holtmann said.
Ohio State won’t know who it is playing Thursday afternoon (at approximately 2 p.m.) until roughly 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night, when the Minnesota/Northwestern game should conclude, so Holtmann said “it’ll be a long night” on Wednesday for the coaches as they finalize their game plan for their first Big Ten Tournament game. They’ve already done what they can to prepare for both possible opponents, though, as there’s no clear favorite to win Wednesday’s game between the Golden Gophers and Wildcats. (Update: Minnesota defeated Northwestern, 51-46, on Wednesday night.)
“Long story short, what we’ve done is tried to prepare for both as much as we can without overwhelming our guys with preparation for two opponents,” Holtmann said.
“I don’t look at this stretch and say, ‘Wow, we’ve had four games where we have played really, really poorly.’ That’s not been the case. I think if that was the case, I’d be much more concerned. I think our guys would be much more concerned.”– Chris Holtmann on Ohio State's four-game losing streak
Holtmann doesn’t want to set any expectations for how many games the Buckeyes should win in the Big Ten Tournament, and he’s not sure there’s a specific number of games they need to win to go into the NCAA Tournament with momentum. That said, he believes his players are excited for the postseason and will play with a sense of urgency in Indianapolis.
“I think they’re anxious, obviously this being taken away from them last year as every other Big Ten team, but I just think in general they’re excited and they’re aware of what’s coming here, not just this week but beyond,” Holtmann said. “But right now, obviously, our focus is just on the Big Ten Tournament. I think they also understand how good this league is, and that every game is going to be a tremendous challenge. I’m sure there’s some excitement about just being a part of it.”
