What happens to Ohio State basketball recruiting class if Chris Holtmann is fired

The Ohio State basketball season has not gone well. Chris Holtmann, for the second straight season, has his team underperforming. The team has not won a road game going back to last year and is one of the worst teams in the Big Ten. This team has no shot to make the NCAA Tournament unless they somehow magically go undefeated from here on out.

Holtmann is on the hot seat and he knows it. He won’t talk about it publicly, but he’s starting to even take hits from local media in Columbus. Radio stations are starting to talk about his job status. While his buyout is high, it’s not prohibitive in the world of NIL. So what happens to Ohio State basketball recruits if he is canned at the end of the season?

The Ohio State basketball team could lose current recruits if Holtmann is fired

There’s a good shot that the Buckeyes could end up losing recruits they have for future classes, although that’s not much right now. As of this moment, the Buckeyes just have two recruits coming in next season. They don’t have any commits for the 2025 class yet, although they have one player who seems to be close to choosing Ohio State.

Juni Mobley, the best recruit Ohio State has for the 2024 class, would have an opportunity to commit elsewhere. He’s the 60th-best recruit in the country and is a four-star prospect, even though he’s a bit small at 6’0 and 150 pounds. He could stay depending on who the new hire would be, but he committed to Holtmann.

Is it premature to be thinking about this right now? Perhaps. It still remains to be seen if Gene Smith has the stones to get rid of Holtmann while he’s on his way out the door. Ohio State basketball fans might be stuck with him for one more season before Ross Bjork decides he’s had enough.

Winning tonight against IU would be a good start to making this decision harder for Smith. We’ll see if the Buckeyes can do it.