If you’ve been tuned into the Ohio State basketball team from the beginning of the season until now, the improvement of the sum of all parts has been evident. Nobody would blame head coach Chris Holtmann if it took this team a while to jell. After all, there were a ton of new faces and unknown pieces of fabric to stitch together.
Early on, it looked like scoring the basketball was going to be a challenge, but the team has become a highly efficient offensive ballclub as the season has worn on. Some of it has to do with guys getting healthy, but it’s been more about the progress individual players have made in fitting together as a team.
And, as a door prize for all the growth has been four top-fifteen wins (three on the road) as of late. As a head coach, you live for teams like this — A collection of players that listen, react, and improve based on the team concept. It’s why a guy gets into coaching.
WATCH: Chris Holtmann, Justice Sueing, E.J. Liddell Illinois State postgame press conference https://t.co/bWGjelejjz
— Phil Harrison (@PhilHarrisonBW) November 26, 2020
For head coach Chris Holtmann, that has definitely been the case so far this season. After a big win against No. 10 Wisconsin on Saturday, he told Buckeyes Wire that this year has been very rewarding, in fact, maybe more so than previous years.
“The progress and the growth of this group has been incredibly rewarding for us as a coaching staff,” Holtmann said… “If you saw us play some of our early games, you would have had legitimate concerns about our group, and I was right there with you. But, I knew that we had great guys, and hopefully we can continue to use every day that’s in front of us to get better. We’re not there yet, we’ve got a lot to improve on. We got to coach better and play better, but it’s been a phenomenal group to coach because we’ve seen growth with each passing week.”
And what’s scary is that Ohio State is still getting healthy, yet still performing at a significantly high level. The team still has plenty of improvement to make, especially on the defensive end, but once C.J. Walker and Seth Towns round more into a healthy form, things could get even better. So far, those two key parts to the team have yet to be 100 percent.
Yet, without Walker, OSU won three-of-four games. Seth Towns is starting to make a difference in games, but he still can’t fully practice and still favors the knee. In other words, the player you see now is not as good as the one you’re eventually going to witness. Once Walker can allow his hand to heal more, he’s already shown the ability to get in the lane and be a scoring threat. That has yet to materialize this season because of the injury.
But, it all could be coming. Even as is, things are rounding into form because this team is playing well as the season goes through the home stretch.
Coaching can be a very frustrating undertaking and you never know how exactly a collection of individuals on a team are going to buy-in. For Ohio State during the 2020-2021 season, so far, Holtmann has this team’s attention and it might just lead to a fun postseason.
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