Not so BOLD PREDICTION:
Ohio State will have a new Head Basketball Coach for the 2025-2026 season and not before.
Theory:
Per earlier posts, the likely result this season is for Ohio State to be on or close to the bubble. Optimistically they could be as good as maybe a #5 or #6 seed and pessimistically they could be almost as bad as last year's sub .500 debacle.
The more probable outcomes range between:
That will be somewhere between barely in and barely out of the tournament. They'll undoubtedly fail to make it beyond the first weekend of the tournament and Gene Smith probably isn't going to can his second most well known/paid employee on his way out the door.
The new AD, whoever that is, isn't realistically going to can the BB coach on his first day on the job especially when the coaching carousel will already have stopped before he takes over so the new guy will be stuck with Holtmann even if he doesn't want to be.
The 2024-2025 season will likely not exceed Holtmann's accomplishments from his first seven so once it ends he will have coached Ohio State Basketball for eight years without either winning a league title or advancing beyond the first weekend of the NCAA.
In the 33 seasons from expansion in 1985 through Matta's last season (2017) the Buckeyes won nine league titles (91, 92, 00, 02, 06, 07, 10, 11, 12) and appeared in eight S16's (91, 92, 99, 07, 10, 11, 12, 13). That works out to an average of about one of each every four years. They also made five E8's (avg of one roughly every seven years) and three F4's (average of one every 11 years).
Since the expansion in 1985, Ohio State's longest droughts are:
League Titles:
- 11 seasons, the current one, 2013-
- 7 seasons, 93-99
- 6 seasons, 85-90
S16's:
- 9 tournaments, the current one, 2014-
- 7 tournaments, 00-06
- 6 tournaments, 93-98
- 6 tournaments, 85-90
E8's:
- 9 tournaments, the current one, 2014-
- 7 tournaments, 00-06
- 7 tournaments, 85-91
F4's:
- 14 tournaments, 85-98
- 10 tournaments, the current one, 2013-
- 7 tournaments, 00-06
Assuming Holtmann makes it through the 2024-25 season without winning a league title or making it out of the first weekend of the NCAA, his tenure alone would be:
- tOSU's longest league title drought since expansion
- tOSU's longest S16 drought since expansion
- tOSU's longest E8 drought since expansion
- tOSU's second longest F4 drought since expansion.