Chris Holtmann said it himself.
After a ninth straight loss on Thursday, the Buckeye head coach admitted he was carrying the weight of the losing streak and felt the disappointment of the season from all angles. And how could he not? The 2022-23 season has been unlike anything he’s experienced in his Ohio State tenure.
On Sunday, Holtmann and company finally got over the hump. The Buckeyes beat Illinois, 72-60, in a much-improved performance that served as a program-wide sigh of relief following a losing streak that spanned well over a month.
One would assume such a win would lift some of that weight off of Holtmann’s shoulders, at least temporarily. If that’s the case, though, he isn’t saying as much. Following the win, Holtmann said he’s focused more on the team’s improvement on a play-by-play basis than the end result of each contest, and that Sunday’s effort was only confirmation of the belief he already held.
“I think there probably is some of that,” said Holtmann when asked if the win alleviated some stress. “I think as much as anything, I have felt better about how we played. And I think that as a coach, and as a coaching staff, you feel better. Obviously we've got a lot of guys who are learning things in the moment. But I have felt better, we have felt better, about how we played here in the last week and a half. And I think that's probably what we've – if there's a good feeling, that's what it's been.”
For the Buckeye players, it's a different story. Holtmann said it might have taken a win for his pupils to truly internalize the positive feedback they’ve gotten from the coaching staff during a stretch of seemingly endless losses.
“I think they needed this in the final stretch. Sometimes even more than coaches, because coaches are evaluating the quality of possessions,” Holtmann said. “Are we playing the right way? But players, obviously we know it's a bottom-line deal. But I think they needed that to feel good about themselves and to validate some of what we've been telling them, with, 'Hey, listen, we are playing more quality possessions than what we were.' It will be rewarded, there's no question.”
In the weeks leading up to Sunday’s game, Bruce Thornton was the most vocal among all Buckeyes about just how much the losing streak was bothering him. For that reason, it was only fitting Thornton led the Buckeyes with 20 points against Illinois and made one of the game’s most crucial plays late when he converted an and-one to put Ohio State up 11 with 3:57 to play.
Thornton was as animated as he’s been all season after the bucket, and rightfully so. The freshman point guard admitted his “emotions got the best” of him in that moment, but only because he’s been “wanting to win so bad.”
After the game, Thornton expressed exactly how much the win meant to him and his teammates.
“It feels great. We did all the small things and that's just the separator,” Thornton said. “We went through a run in the second half, we really wasn't making any threes or shots. (Justice Sueing) came in and got some crucial offensive rebounds, made some great layups to fuel our offense back up again. And small things like that won't be seen, but stuff like that helped us get a win today.
“Just having consistent losses is not a good feeling at all. Seeing the team come together, our coaches come together, the fans come together, all us wanting to get a dub against a good Illinois team, it felt great.”
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) February 26, 2023
On the heels of a stretch that made many question how many of Ohio State’s young standouts would want to return to a team that’s struggled so much next season, the win only seemed to affirm Thornton’s most positive feelings about the program.
“I feel like I owe it to the coaches, my teammates, the fans, man,” said Thornton about earning the win. “They come out and it's unbelievable support every single game they come out. I'm so glad I'm here at Ohio State. There's no better place than here.”
The Buckeyes had already flashed the promise they showed Sunday at multiple points earlier in the season. But after a stretch of 14 losses in 15 games, that was easy to forget. Now the challenge is to string that kind of effort together for more than one game at a time. After all, Ohio State looked stellar in its Jan. 21 blowout win over Iowa – which stopped a five-game losing streak – only to drop its next nine games in a row.
Buckeye captain Justice Sueing said Ohio State is already focused on bringing the same intensity it showed Sunday to the practice floor Monday as the Buckeyes prepare to play their final home game of the year against Maryland on Wednesday.
“I think the reason why we were able to get it is just because of our mentality coming into every day. A lot of guys just come in every day ready to work, ready to improve regardless of the results of the games previously,” Sueing said. “So we knew that in due time that all the work would pay off. So we got this one tonight and we're gonna come back tomorrow with the same mentality of getting better, improving on the things that we could work on from this game and then heading into the one on Wednesday.”
Thornton said Ohio State will celebrate its long-awaited win, but that as long as it shows up to practice with the same mentality it had on Sunday, “I feel like we'll be good against Maryland.”
Even if Ohio State wins its final three regular-season games, it won’t reach the NCAA Tournament. That ship sailed long ago, and the Buckeyes’ only hope of going dancing in March will be an unlikely run to a Big Ten Tournament title in Chicago.
But Holtmann isn’t necessarily concerning himself with the big picture at this juncture. If the Buckeyes focus on the little things, he believes wins will naturally follow – even if those wins end up meaningless for the postseason goals the team once possessed.
“I think at this point, as we talked about the last month, really, it is about how we're playing as much as anything. And we really did feel like we were playing better basketball, not always being rewarded necessarily for that,” Holtmann said. “But I think at this point, really throughout the season, that is really what we stress: Play the right way, play it for longer stretches. We have been doing that, starting really in the Purdue game, I believe. I thought we had some really good stretches of play there.
“Can we extend those minutes of quality play for longer stretches? I thought we did that. And I thought we did it the other night as well. We felt the dividends obviously, the rewards of it with a win here.”
