College Basketball Open Discussion

[jemblue]

I’m not on the Holtmann bandwagon. In 10 years as a head coach he’s earned zero banners. No conference titles, no conference tournaments, no Final Fours, and just one career Sweet 16.

His rep at OSU is mostly based on his first season there, with Bates-Diop, and even then, his team choked away the league title and lost in the first weekend of the tournament. Since then he’s gone 8-12, 11-9 and 12-8 in league play. Really don’t get where the media love comes from. Saying that he “keeps OSU competitive” is damning with faint praise. His predecessor at OSU was winning Big Ten titles and going to Final Fours.

[quickdarshan]

He’s a good coach given the players he has. Liddell and Wesson developed well under him. I think if you’re going to knock him, it’s more for not bringing in and retaining talent.

[BigBoutros]

@MichiganMan2424 wrote a smashing summary on Holtmann back in February, even before their 2-15 loss to Oral Roberts.

[AC1997]

I think Holtman is a good coach who gets a lot of out his talent and has shown the ability to play chess when he’s handed checkers. But at some point he has to do more because he’s responsible for getting the chess pieces and actually winning with them. How do you “rate” him in that context? I have no idea. I think there’s a bit of a Matt Painter vibe there in that people acknowledge he’s a good coach and doing a lot with what he’s got…but falls short of the biggest accomplishments.

OSU may be a football school, but they’re probably one of the richest university ADs in the country and are willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. So at some point he’s going to need to hang some banners probably.

[hack]

I enjoyed ``willing to do whatever it takes’’. That said, IMO he has typical expectations for a basketball coach at a football school. Whatever he does is just gravy anyways.

[BurgerBoy82]

I don’t think it’s fair to just look at banners. Until OSU where had Holtmann been?? Gardner Webb for 2 years, they have been a D1 program for 19 seasons with 1 conference title (before Holtmann) and one conference tourney title (after Holtmann). He had 3 years at Butler where he had some very good seasons but for the present and forseeable future this is a conference that Villanova will rule. Holtmann fits in quite well with past coaches at Butler. Not at the level of Stevens, a little below Matta (mainly due to recruiting), above Lickliter, far better than Miller and Jordan.

The predecssor of Holtmann built OSU off of Lawrence North, Jared Sullinger, and some great recruiting classes. I doubt Holtmann is going to ever recruit at that level. There also seems to be some revisionist history on Matta, his last 4 years were not good 39-33 conference record no finish higher than 5th and a total of 1 NCAA tournament victory. He probably wasn’t going to get fired for another year or two but he probably left at a good time.

[lopez]

How long was Holtmann at Butler? For a cup of coffee with any success happening with players Stevens recruited? Not sure I see it with Holtmann.

[romeowolv]

Love it. Great team that was

[BurgerBoy82]

34-20 4 NCAA tourney wins, 34-20 conference record. His last year was a sweet sixteen there wasn’t any Steven’s players left at that time

[AC1997]

Do banners count in the context of firing the previous coach because he wasn’t delivering even if he had more such accolades than Holtman?

[mgl]

I mean part of the reason why Holtmann hasn’t had great talent to coach at OSU is because a huge number of decent recruits transferred out.

#34 DJ Carton, #50 Alonzo Gaffney, #79 Luther Muhammad, #103 Jaedon Ledee, from just 2 classes.

Annually bringing in the #10 class in the conference probably won’t help him.

[DLhoops]

Holtmann took over for an OSU program that was on a clear downward trajectory under Matta (who had previously done great things). If you assume OSU makes the tourney in 2020 (even if they get upset in 1st round), Holtmann’s first 4 seasons vs Matta’s last 4.

Holtmann: 4 NCAA tourney appearances, 2 tourney wins, 46-32 conference record, KenPom ranks of 8, 11, 16, and 44.
Matta: 2 NCAA tourney appearances, 1 tourney win, 39-33 conference record, KenPom ranks of 19, 19, 73, and 76.

So he has clearly improved his first 4 seasons compared to Matta’s last 4. We will have to see where he ends up long term. Unlikely he reaches the peaks of Matta, who while choked a few NCAA tourneys, had massive regular season success.

[stephenrjking]

You can forgive the occasional transfer or two, but speaking as a guy who has grown weary of the same story over and over again with the football program, at some point it’s the coach’s responsibility to put talent in the field of play.

[BurgerBoy82]

I imagine the banners would have been what kept Matta in good standing. His prior 4 years were not good and I don’t know if that was the time his health issues were starting.

[BurgerBoy82]

It’s actually possible that some of these transfers moving on and the upgrades Holtmann got were upgrades.

Gaffney averaging 8ppg at NW Florida
LeDee averaging 5ppg at TCU
Muhammad averaging 7ppg at ASU
Potter averaging 10ppg-12ppg (best producing transfer)

Incoming transfers
CJ Walker
Seth Towns
Justice Sueing

I think Walker/Sueing were contributing upgrades over all transfers not named Potter. Towns has always had injury issues.

I am not sure how to constitute Carton because it seemed more about mental health issues than anything about OSU. I would have liked to have seen what Carton/Washington could have done for 1.5 years, maybe it would have worked or maybe it would have been a disaster. He still got some big time guys like LIddell/Washington.

[stephenrjking]

It’s actually possible that some of these transfers moving on and the upgrades Holtmann got were upgrades.

Sure, it may be so. But in the context we’re talking about the issue of Holtmann doing a good job given the pieces he has, and the transfers were cited in that context to explain that he’s recruiting good players.

My point is that at some point you can’t just claim it’s bad luck every year if the top prospects you recruit leave. One could easily rephrase “givent he pieces he has” to read, Holtmann does a good job “given the hand he is dealt.”

But, like Harbaugh in football, Holtmann is ultimately the one building the deck that his cards are dealt from.

[MichiganMan2424]

That’s a pretty big stretch.

Gaffney is fair, he never panned out.

LeDee averaged 5 PPG in his 2nd year at TCU, but in his two years he’s had ORTGs of 116 and 117 on USG’s of 13.5% and 19%. Granted the minutes have been low, but there’s reason to think he may breakout this year.

Muhammad didn’t play last year due to injury at ASU, that 7 PPG number is from his sophomore year at OSU. But Muhammad was OSU’s best perimeter defender, and him leaving explains a part of OSU’s defensive struggles last year (although I’d say a heavy majority of it is them lacking any interior presence, which will be the case next year as well). I also am confused as to how you’re arguing that Walker was an upgrade over Muhammad, when you also said above that Wheeler is potentially an upgrade over Walker. Muhammad is a great perimeter defender, like Wheeler, and also put up a 108 ORTG as a sophomore on 15% USG. Both those numbers are higher than anything Wheeler put up in 4 years at PSU. So pretty clearly to me Muhammad > Wheeler, and if you’re saying Wheeler => Walker, than Muhammad > Walker as well.

*Separate point, but Wheeler has to be the most overrated transfer in the B1G IMO. His career best season last year consisted of him putting up a 102.6 ORTG on 14.1% USG, and he had an AST rate of 19.6% to a TO rate of 23.2% (which is by far the closest he’s ever come to having an AST rate equaling his TO rate, most other years his TO rate has been 10%+ higher than his AST rate). And now he’s supposed to be OSU’s starting PG and an upgrade over Walker? I get that Wheeler is a good defender, but so was Musa Jallow, and he barely played last year for OSU because he was so bad offensively. Wheeler to me is easily a replacement for Jallow, not Walker.

Potter was a key factor in Wisconsin winning the B1G two years ago and their 2nd best player both years at Wisconsin.

And sure Carton left for reasons not necessarily related to Holtmann/OSU, but he’s still the best recruit Holtmann ever had leaving after 1 season.

Carton and Potter alone are bigger losses than anything Holtmann has brought in, and Muhammad could be a very good piece for ASU next year too. So to say Holtmann won on those transactions seems like a stretch to me.

I also think the argument about Holtmann, or at least the argument I’ve made previously, is being a little twisted. He’s clearly a good coach, and improved OSU’s standing from when Matta left. But in all his stops he’s never shown he’s anything better than good, and never come close to having a team at the levels Matta had OSU at their peak. I don’t doubt that Holtmann will have some solid teams at OSU year in and year out, but I’ll have to see him having a truly elite team before I believe it.

[hack]

All of which is fine. Holtmann is more than welcome to recruit poorly, retain few, and outcoach his lowered expectations for as long as he wants to. I’m fine if he grabs a #2 seed occasionally but never threatens to really take the next step. But we have to stop losing to them every year.

[MichBolts]

Someone on Reddit mentioned that Georgia’s second leading scorer in the Torvik projections is a walk-on, and oh man, it would be a major surprise if this team wasn’t absolutely dreadful. Don’t even know how the machine could spit out Etter scoring nearly 14 points a game after scoring 2.4 this year, so feels like this is even optimistic for Georgia.

[mgl]

13.6 ppg on a 15% usage would be something.