Chris Holtmann (ex-tOSU Bball coach, HC at DePaul)

[nomatta]

neither am i. questioning a coach's late-game decisions is not an "overarching negative judgment."

How is it not?

You're perfectly entitled to question Holtmann's late-game coaching, though. Holtmann's not perfect and definitely has some growing to do as a coach.

But saying he's a bad or suspect coach in late-game situations is definitely not a game-specific criticism or something.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

How is it not?

You're perfectly entitled to question Holtmann's late-game coaching, though. Holtmann's not perfect and definitely has some growing to do as a coach.

But saying he's a bad or suspect coach in late-game situations is definitely not a game-specific criticism or something.

because "overarching" means "comprehensive, all-embracing." late-game coaching is merely one component of many. i'm not questioning ho1tmann's leadership and direction as a whole. the overwhelming majority of the opinions i have about ho1tmann are glowing.

i'll put it this way: my criticism of some parts of ho1tmann's late-game coaching is as much a reflection of my overarching opinion of him as your negative view of the current team is a reflection of the program as a whole.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Perhaps not, but managing late-game strategy isn't the same if you have competent scorers as it is when you don't.

We don't.

yes, not having competent scorers who can create their own shot is an obvious issue. i'd never disagree with that, nor would i ever blame ho1tmann for that.

as i pointed out in the game thread, though, the issue i was raising was not about offense but instead defense -- or, more accurately, fouling. gard has been pulling happ toward the end of close games because he's a huge liability on the foul line. in overtime, ho1tmann did not adequately punish wisconsin for having a sub-.500 free throw shooter in the game. the badgers bled a lot of clock over the last 2 minutes of overtime. fouling happ would have extended the game while putting someone one the line who's going to miss the front end of the 1-and-1 more often than not.

and as i also brought up in the game thread, starting joey lane and playing him for 3 minutes is something you do when you've already clinched a tournament spot. that was a nice gesture by coach, but this game was far too important. and it turned out to be one that almost certainly would have resulted in a tournament spot with just one more point in regulation.

 

[LitlBuck]

I am still on the fence regarding Holtmann. I will wait until he gets next year's recruiting class in and then I will judge him. However, the last play in regulation yesterday against Wisconsin really bothers me. I know that CJ was are leading scorer in that game but I question whether or not he was the person to be handling the ball in that possession. It has been shown over this season that CJ does not as of the ball very well when trying to penetrate and he shoots much better when he is already set. I almost would have rather seen the ball in the hands of Woods or Washington. I realize that CJ is a senior and that might have played into Holtmann's decision. Nonetheless, I thought the "play" was very poorly conceived not to mention executed.

 

[OHSportsFan]

4-0 vs Indiana

 

[Jake]

Duke is 0-3 vs ranked opponents without Zion, but they did manage to win at home by 1 point vs shitty Wake Forest.

Kaleb isn't Zion, but it seems losing your best player has a detrimental effect on your team even if you have a hall of fame coach. Perhaps some folks should consider this before deciding in the last 10 days that Holt can't coach?

It's amazing how much better "coaching" looked today with Kaleb back. Hopefully, the hyperventilating about Holt can disappear as quickly as it began.

 

[OhioState001]

It's amazing how much better "coaching" looked today with Kaleb back. Hopefully, the hyperventilating about Holt can disappear as quickly as it began.

He's done an ok job this year, but I won't be completely confident until we start competing for Big Ten titles

 

[nomatta]

who here trusts ho1tmann's coaching in close late-game situations?

While we may disagree about how systemic a criticism this is or isn't, you may be on to something here.

I don't know, I am not familiar enough with Holtmann's Butler or GWebb teams to know how much they might have struggled in late-game situations due to coaching decisions.

Certainly, the way we finish a lot of these games leaves something to be desired, but having a legit PG floor general guy can go a long way towards making the coach look better late in games.

That is not to rag on CJ because he helped the team a lot more than he hurt today. He's just not the best PG in terms of keeping the team on pace, controlling game flow, and so on. I think we will still have some issues with that next season with the new CJ and with frosh DJ, but hopefully we will see improvement in PG play at some point in the future.

Just happy we got the win today. Would have been absolutely brutal to have our huge comeback against Wiscy fall short in OT and then follow that up immediately by losing to a huge comeback from IU.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

While we may disagree about how systemic a criticism this is or isn't, you may be on to something here.

I don't know, I am not familiar enough with Holtmann's Butler or GWebb teams to know how much they might have struggled in late-game situations due to coaching decisions.

Certainly, the way we finish a lot of these games leaves something to be desired, but having a legit PG floor general guy can go a long way towards making the coach look better late in games.

That is not to rag on CJ because he helped the team a lot more than he hurt today. He's just not the best PG in terms of keeping the team on pace, controlling game flow, and so on. I think we will still have some issues with that next season with the new CJ and with frosh DJ, but hopefully we will see improvement in PG play at some point in the future.

Just happy we got the win today. Would have been absolutely brutal to have our huge comeback against Wiscy fall short in OT and then follow that up immediately by losing to a huge comeback from IU.

it's not even the lack of a good and true point guard. there are issues regarding our overall approach. today, once we got to 20-up, we ventured away from ball rotation and spacing. instead, we began to dribble-drive a lot more, which led to turnovers and empty possessions. at one point, 19 of our 21 makes came off of an assist. we were beating iu by adequate spacing, not clogging up the middle with dribble penetration into double- and triple-teams. it was a horrible mistake to shift our overall offensive approach. the coaches let us forget what was working, and so we started to regress back to lazy isolation plays... which will ALWAYS fail unless it's kaleb isolating.

also, our in-bounding sucks. it sucked last year and it sucks again. this always goes back to practice. we don't need to be a team full of conleys and crafts to be better against pressure.

as far as our defense down the stretch, i don't have too many bones to pick. indiana was just hitting everything.

 

[QualityLoss]

I have to agree with Buckguy.

Over the past two season I have consistently noticed the two concepts we have struggled most with are the press break and zone offense. You could argue that the zone offense is a personnel issue and I would not necessarily disagree but the press break should be better.


With that said, I want to give coach a big smooch after the game today.

 

[nomatta]

it's not even the lack of a good and true point guard. there are issues regarding our overall approach. today, once we got to 20-up, we ventured away from ball rotation and spacing. instead, we began to dribble-drive a lot more, which led to turnovers and empty possessions. at one point, 19 of our 21 makes came off of an assist. we were beating iu by adequate spacing, not clogging up the middle with dribble penetration into double- and triple-teams. it was a horrible mistake to shift our overall offensive approach. the coaches let us forget what was working, and so we started to regress back to lazy isolation plays... which will ALWAYS fail unless it's kaleb isolating.

also, our in-bounding sucks. it sucked last year and it sucks again. this always goes back to practice. we don't need to be a team full of conleys and crafts to be better against pressure.

as far as our defense down the stretch, i don't have too many bones to pick. indiana was just hitting everything.

Well, the issues you present ARE partially a PG's responsibility in terms of quarterbacking the team. I totally agree the coaches could have done a better job of reinforcing what was working, I am not sure what Holtmann's thought process was there or if he simply wasn't getting through to his guys, but having a PG who understands the game and how to get the team on the same page is really important to the very things you are talking about. like, I don't think Holtmann consciously said to his guys, "hey, let's go away from good spacing and ball rotation and into ill-advised dribble penetration!" so some of the onus is on the players and some of it is on the coaches for not getting them back to what they had the players doing in the first place. Again, the PG is the main representative of the coach's intention out there on the court, and I don't know if we have a PG who is really executing what Holtmann wants executed.

Also a better PG and better ballhandlers helps against pressure.

again, not trying to rag on CJ, I appreciate what he has done for this team. I just wonder if Holtmann's late-game coaching will look any better when we have better ballhandler and decision-makers on the court. the coaches can only manage so much, and they can't micro-manage the game as it is happening. to some extent, they need guys out there on the court that they can trust in these situations.

 

[Systems_id]

He's done an ok job this year, but I won't be completely confident until we start competing for Big Ten titles

By this logic you should've been confident last year.



Edit: Honestly all of this so called "criticism" just seems like butt hurt Matta fans getting their jabs in at the first sign of weakness. Ya'll were pretty silent last year when Holtmann was too busy being the first coach in something like 50 years to go 7-0 in the B1G, and was a couple of games from out right winning the B1G regular season with a team Matta couldn't even get to the NIT. And this is coming from someone who was devastated when Matta was fired. He was the first BBall coach I followed with any regularity.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Ya'll were pretty silent last year...

"you all"? no. you some? sure. i know i can pull up multiple comments i posted last year that questioned ho1tmann's late-game decisions. specifically, the butler and psu games come to mind. i trust and like pretty much everything about ho1tmann; however, there is room for him to grow as a coach in the final minutes. better talent will address many faults, but it will not address all of them.

 

[OhioState001]

By this logic you should've been confident last year.



Edit: Honestly all of this so called "criticism" just seems like butt hurt Matta fans getting their jabs in at the first sign of weakness. Ya'll were pretty silent last year when Holtmann was too busy being the first coach in something like 50 years to go 7-0 in the B1G, and was a couple of games from out right winning the B1G regular season with a team Matta couldn't even get to the NIT. And this is coming from someone who was devastated when Matta was fired. He was the first BBall coach I followed with any regularity.

Really dude? That's a very dishonest take. The team Matta couldn't even get to the NIT didn't have KBD or Kaleb Wesson

 

[Systems_id]

Really dude? That's a very dishonest take. The team Matta couldn't even get to the NIT didn't have KBD or Kaleb Wesson

Oh please. Wesson wouldn't have made a difference on that squad and, neither would KDB considering they barely got to the NIT the year before when he was healthy.