Ohio State basketball: Why didn’t OSU fire Chris Holtmann sooner?

The Ohio State basketball team is one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten right now. They have won six of their last seven games, all under interim head coach Jake Diebler. Diebler is one win away from securing the full-time head coaching job. He could end up taking a team that was dead to rights and having them play in the NCAA Tournament.

Diebler took over a month ago when Chris Holtmann was fired. It was surprising that Gene Smith decided to fire Holtmann during the season because he had never done that before. But as we’ve seen, it was clearly the right decision. So that begs the question: why didn’t Smith fire Holtmann sooner?

Chris Holtmann should’ve been fired from the Ohio State basketball team a year ago

Last year should have been when Holtmann was let go. Ohio State had the worst season they’d had in 20 years. They were so bad that they didn’t even get asked to play in the NIT or CBI because they were under .500. It was also the sixth straight year without making a Sweet 16. What else did Smith need to see to make a move?

Holtmann has already landed another job and very well might succeed at DePaul. But success is defined differently for this program. Ohio State is good enough to make the NCAA Tournament every year as a baseline. It’s not like it’s championship or bust like it is for the football program.

Maybe the only reason at all why Holtmann was fired was that Ross Bjork pressured Smith into doing so. Smith is out the door in the Summer and Bjork saw that Holtmann wasn’t the answer. If that’s the case, then Ohio State basketball fans should be thrilled that they finally have an athletic director who has standards for the basketball program.

Ohio State will try to keep their tournament dreams alive tonight as they take on Illinois at 6:30 pm ET.