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Chris Holtmann started banging his two fists on the table in front of him to underline every word that came out of his mouth.
“The thing in this league right now is if you stop growing and getting better every day you are beaten,” said Holtmann. “I feel like I’m talking to my team right here so I apologize for the enthusiasm.”
He had every reason to feel excited inside the State Farm Center on Saturday afternoon. His Ohio State team had just traveled to Champaign, Ill. And handed over the preseason pick to win the Big Ten Championship in an 87-81 loss at home. The victory extended the Buckeyes’ winning streak to three games after beating Rutgers on the road and Northwestern at home, tied them with the Illini for fourth place in the conference and improved their record to 11-3 this season.
It was indeed the last example of the process he so often speaks of coming to fruition before him. He’s seen his players embrace and accept his role, he’s stuck with the day-to-day improvement he preaches, and now he’s seeing the visceral on-court results he wanted in what Seth Towns thought was the most physical game. Ohio State has played all season.
Two words in the sentence after he apologized, the fists started hitting the table again. Holtmann, who has undoubtedly conveyed this message to his own players – including the table hype – dozens of times over the past few months, couldn’t help it.
“But if you get out of it, you get beaten. You lose, ”said Holtmann. “The challenge is therefore to engage every day in this work in progress, because that is what we are. That’s who we are, and that’s what most teams are, but that’s definitely what we are with some of our new parts and young guys taking on new roles. We have to be firmly committed to this because as soon as you lose your sight in this league you are going to be beaten and people are going to say, ‘Why? How do they get beaten by this team? Well, in some cases we have stopped improving.
“It’s the challenge for us to keep doing it, and I think if our group has that mindset it will give us the chance to be better – or at least be our best.
Finally, the fists rested. Point done.
Second-year forward EJ Liddell, a 6-foot-7 forward who has faced his home state Illini twice in his career and both times suddenly watched, is among those taking on new roles this season and who have gotten used to them throughout the season. as a first team All-Big Ten player. He recorded his first-ever double-brace in a win over them 10 and a half months ago, and he set a new career-high 26 points in his first road encounter with Illinois on Saturday.
Over the past two months, Liddell – who has gone from an average of 16.6 minutes per game last season to 27 per game this season – has faced the challenges of running alongside Duane Washington Jr. at the top. scouting reports from opposing teams. On Wednesday, he missed all six shots from the field against a team from the Northwest that trapped and specifically targeted him, which made it difficult for him. Afterward, Holtmann had to speak to the sophomore to help him figure out how some of those hiccups were affecting the rest of his performance.
Obviously, Liddell listened and learned. His 26 points were the most scored by anyone on either team, and he added a career-high four-point 3-point with seven rebounds. He was also part of a group of Buckeyes who were given the task of rounding up 7ft cross Kofi Cockburn.
“It’s my public school, but that’s not what motivated me today,” Liddell said. “They were my teammates. I felt like I had to do more to help us win today. I didn’t really have the best game against Northwestern, and that’s why they stayed there most of the time. But I just felt like today I was doing everything I could for my teammates. Tonight it was just a goal, and that’s how we got the win.
No one else in the state of Ohio has scored more than 11 points, although the 10 guys who took the court contributed significantly – which kind of becomes a theme.
Justin Ahrens picked up four fouls before seeing the ball go through the net, but for a seven-minute stretch midway through the second period, he broke a 3-point line to keep Illinois at bay. Holtmann says he has a saying – ‘never flinch’ – which Ahrens respected when he stopped in transition for his last triple of the day.
“I just don’t know we’re going to look better than Justin with a wide open 3,” Holtmann said. “Really proud of him for his commitment.”
Seth Towns tied his season record 11 points in 15 minutes, making a pair of 3s and later noting that he feels healthier. Judge Sueing, who played the point forward due to the continued absences of injured CJ Walker and Jimmy Sotos, committed five turnovers, a team-high, but also recorded nine points, seven draws, four assists and two interceptions and had the defensive mission on Ayo Dosunmu. Washington exhausted all four free throw attempts in the final 23 seconds as Ohio State couldn’t afford a miss. Musa Jallow only played six minutes but crushed a 3-point corner with less than two minutes to go after Ahrens fouled.
Zed Key, a freshman who entered as a three-star rookie, made Cockburn work for everything. The still active tall man finished off the Cockburn monster at the post and caught an offensive foul, registering eight points and four draws. He and Kyle Young embodied Holtmann’s stated strategy of having Cockburn “score the ball in crowds and see bodies as much as possible”. Meechie Johnson, who started training just over a week ago, recorded a plus-17 higher in the game in her second college game.
“I think what that says about our young men right now is that they’ve really embraced what each guy can bring to the team,” said Holtmann. “They were able to come in and play efficiently.”
Towns added, “We’ve made a ton of progress as a team in chemistry and so on. You see Meechie is already making huge contributions to the team, my health is improving and so many people are getting in shape. I think chemistry is probably the most important thing. We end up where we love to be our spots, and you see so many people on the team come to life because of that.
Over the past seven days, Ohio State has claimed three straight wins that should propel this group above its current ranking of 21st in the Associated Press’s top 25. They started to turn heads.
The challenge for the Buckeyes now is to make sure they don’t turn their heads away from what got them to this point.
“I hope we can keep moving forward,” said Holtmann. “It’s a fun group to coach because they’ve had that mindset so far.”
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