Things are a big, sloppy mess at Ohio State. You could argue it’s been that way for a while, as the Buckeyes have missed the last two NCAA Tournaments and haven’t finished in the top-four of the Big Ten since the 2012-13 season, but the poo has hit the fan in a whole new way over the last month.
After firing long-time coach Thad Matta and replacing him with Butler’s Chris Holtmann, a series of defections and dismissals have decimated the Buckeyes’ roster. The most recent news came Friday when the school announced freshman Braxton Beverly had been granted his release and redshirt freshman Derek Funderburk was dismissed from the program.
And with that, Ohio State has only eight scholarship players on its 2017-18 roster. Compare that to the 13 slots you’re allowed, and it’s ugly. And with two true freshmen on the squad, Holtmann has only six players who have completed an official Division I practice.
To put it simply, Ohio State shot itself in the foot by waiting until June to let go of Matta. They had plenty of cause to lose him in March once the 2016-17 season wrapped up with a 17-15 record and not even a NIT appearance. But athletic director Gene Smith decided to hang on to Matta for the time being.
Then things seemed to change when four-star recruit Darius Bazley decommitted from OSU and proceeded to bash Matta and the program. Bazley said he didn’t trust OSU to help him get to the NBA, or even the NCAA Tournament:
“Ohio State, they didn’t make the NCAA Tournament this year. They didn’t even make the NIT, which is unfortunate, but I looked into the recruits they have coming into next year, they didn’t look too good for the future. So I felt like when my class came in, yeah, we would’ve been OK, but good enough to make the tournament? I don’t know.”
Having a recruit damage the school’s reputation in such a public way pretty clearly spelled the beginning of the end for Matta. Yet the Buckeyes still waited several weeks to actually make a coaching change.
To no fault of Holtmann’s, the 2017-18 season will be a complete lost cause. There’s not much to be thankful for in Columbus right now, but Ohio State fans should at least be happy they snagged a coach as good as Holtmann more than a month after the coaching carousel wrapped up. By the time he was hired, all the best Class of 2017 recruits had already signed with college basketball’s other bluebloods. At least Holtmann managed to take top-100 recruit Kyle Young with him from Butler to OSU.
Matta’s program had already been declining for years. A top-five recruiting class from 2015 never materialized, and that combined with several players leaving for the pros (many of whom could have benefited from an extra year in school) have left the roster depleted for years now.
Now the school has put its basketball program in an even worse spot by forcing Holtmann to play catch up.
