Ohio State's Current Players and the Transition From Thad Matta to Chris Holtmann

By Eric Seger on June 13, 2017 at 1:05 pm
How Ohio State's current players began the transition process from Thad Matta to Chris Holtmann.
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Jae'Sean Tate answered the reporter's question on his new coach. But then he made sure to add a bit about his old one.

“I definitely just wanted to know what his goals were for the team, what kind of coach he was,” Ohio State's senior forward said on Monday about Chris Holtmann, the former Butler coach Gene Smith tapped to bring the Buckeyes back to national relevance on the hardwood. “Everything he said in the meeting, I was excited to be able to be coached by him this year. He seems like a very cool guy and he loves to let you go free on offense and he’s a great defensive coach too. As of right now, he sounds like everything Coach [Thad] Matta’s style of play was.

“And I would just like to say that although Coach Matta’s era has ended, the team and I are looking at this as a new era. We’re going to be the first ones that are going to be able to start a new era for Coach Holt and we’re very excited for that.”

The Holtmann era began on Monday when Smith and the Buckeyes officially introduced the 14th head coach in program history. The name that will be forever slated into slot No. 13 on that list is why Tate, Keita Bates-Diop and other players that remain in the program came to Columbus to play for Ohio State.

Tate, Thad
via Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports.

And now he's gone.

For Tate and Bates-Diop, the team's two captains, it was their responsibility to be the glue that held everyone else together while the team sat in limbo as Smith conducted his coaching search, which lasted nearly a week. Now, they have to be the voices Holtmann hears most as he instills his culture and works to get the Buckeyes back to the top tier of the Big Ten.

“It was definitely nerve-wracking, especially for me, Keita and Kam [Williams] going into our senior year and being so late in the process. We literally found out we weren’t going to have a coach on the first day of summer workouts,” Tate said. “We met with Gene and at the end of the day, we trust his process and we know he has the best interest for us.”

Tate and Williams both have one year of eligibility left. Bates-Diop actually has two, after receiving a medical redshirt in what turned out to be Matta's final year due to surgery to repair a stress fracture in his leg. A soft-spoken but key cog in Ohio State's wheel that was missing last season, Bates-Diop is medically cleared and working himself back to playing shape. But even he admitted being the voice the team needed to hear was difficult.

After all, every player in the program loves Matta. Actually, they adore Matta.

“This is a great metaphor for life. Sometimes things are going to change, sometimes people are going to leave but it’s just preparing us for the real world.”– Jae'Sean Tate

“We've all built a personal relationship with Coach over the last four years, well actually five years with being recruited,” Bates-Diop said. “Someone that was here and then to not be here the next day, that was rough for us. That was the first time I've gone through a major coaching change in my life. It was definitely rough and we're leaning on each other to get through it.”

Added Tate: “He’s the reason I came to Ohio State. It was between Ohio State and Michigan and just the kindness and how real Coach Matta was the reason I came here.”

Both players met with Smith in the evening after their first summer workout, when they caught word that Matta would be moving on from the program. They needed answers, much like any 20-something-year-old would after hearing the man they agreed to come play for would no longer be the ones they would report to practice to or play for from November to March.

Tate said they stressed to Smith they wanted — needed — a player's coach, someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty no matter what happens and is always there for them when disaster strikes. Like when Tate tore the labrum muscle in his shoulder before his freshman year. And then when the other one ripped near the end of the 2015-16 season.

Or when a frustrated Bates-Diop had to swallow the fact he would miss last season because his leg wouldn't heal. Bates-Diop then wasn't sure how to handle himself when he got wind of news that his little brother was in cardiac arrest, which shocked his already fragile emotions even more. Matta helped him persist.

Accountability and structure were the other prongs to the verbal PowerPoint Tate and Bates-Diop stressed to Smith: “We met multiple times as a team before the coach was chosen,” Tate said.

Every player and their team face trials and tribulations throughout a season, and it can never be predicted what will happen. The man each one of the Ohio State Buckeyes went to regardless the hour of the day is still their coach — just like every player who passed through the program in Matta's 13 seasons.

He just won't lead them on the court anymore. That job now belongs to Holtmann, and the clock is ticking. Ohio State's 2017-18 season starts in fewer than five months.

Holtmann, Brutus

“There were a lot of emotions, a lot of questions, but at the end of the day, he made it be known we can always reach out to him whenever,” Tate said of Matta. “Even long after basketball, he’s always going to be in our corner and we always have his number.”

Added Bates-Diop, who said he hasn't yet had a moment to process the events of the last week: “I think it was good that it happened so fast so we could get the ball rolling with the new coach. Because we're already kind of behind. I think it was good that we have this structure to have consistent stuff every day to keep our minds off of that.”

"That" is the hole that exists with Matta no longer in the program. One Holtmann must fill quickly, with the help of his two leaders.

“It was me and Keita’s job to keep us together, keep us on track. I think that everything happens for a reason. This is a great metaphor for life,” Tate said. “Sometimes things are going to change, sometimes people are going to leave but it’s just preparing us for the real world.”

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