Ohio State fires coach Chris Holtmann after seven seasons
Ohio State has fired men's basketball coach Chris Holtmann during his seventh season with the program.
Having signed him to an extension in the summer of 2022 that ran through the 2027-28 season, athletic director Gene Smith is terminating Holtmann's contract immediately with four years remaining in a move that has been a few days in the making.
Associate head coach Jake Diebler is expected to take over as the interim coach for the remainder of the season. Holtmann will be paid a $12.5 million buyout, and incoming athletic director Ross Bjork will lead the search for his replacement. He starts in a senior advisor to the athletic director role on March 1, reporting to the president, before taking over the job this summer.
The move came the day after Ohio State lost 62-54 at No. 20 Wisconsin to drop to 14-11 overall and 4-10 in the Big Ten.
“I want to express my appreciation toward Chris for the first-class program, and the well-respected program, he has run here at Ohio State,” Smith said in a statement. “He and his wife, Lori, are wonderful people. I thank each of them for their seven years here in Columbus and I wish them well.”
In seven seasons at Ohio State, Holtmann amassed a record of 137-86 overall and was 67-65 in Big Ten play.
The Buckeyes came a game short of winning the Big Ten in his first season, going 25-9 overall and 15-3 in the league, and reached the NCAA Tournament. It was the first of five straight March Madness appearances for the Buckeyes under Holtmann, a figure that includes the 2020 tournament that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Buckeyes failed to get out of the first weekend each time.
Most notably, the Buckeyes earned a No. 2 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament but were upset by No. 15 seed Oral Roberts in the first round.
Things have spiraled the past two seasons. Last year, Ohio State lost 14 of 15 games in 2022-23 to stumble to a 16-19 overall record and 5-15 mark in Big Ten play. It led to an offseason of soul searching, but that has not produced a turnaround.
This year, the Buckeyes started 12-2 but have lost nine of their past 11 and are again languishing near the bottom of the Big Ten standings. Holtmann has been the subject of some booing at home games as attendance has dwindled at Value City Arena, and the in-arena pregame experience was altered so that the announcer was simply stating rather than shouting Holtmann's name.
After a loss at Northwestern on Jan. 27, Holtmann dismissed the notion that he was coaching for his job and said he was focused only on the team getting better. The next day, Smith told The Dispatch that, “We have a lot of this season left to play, and we have coaches and players that are focused on winning every day. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out.”
Offered within a week of Thad Matta’s firing in May 2017, Holtmann initially turned down the job and was planning to return to Butler for his fourth season. He changed his mind, reached out to Smith and quickly came to an agreement as the athletic director was preparing to offer the position to Creighton coach Greg McDermott.
Holtmann is a three-time Naismith coach of the year finalist and was named coach of the year in the Big South at Gardner Webb in 2013, at Butler in 2017 and at Ohio State in 2018. He recruited, signed and developed Duane Washington Jr., E.J. Liddell, Malaki Branham and Brice Sensabaugh into NBA players and also helped Keita Bates-Diop and Jae'Sean Tate reach the league after inheriting them from Matta.
Smith is expected to meet with reporters this evening.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State fires coach Chris Holtmann after seven seasons
