Ohio State's New Staff Alignment Features A Balance in Power

By Tim Shoemaker on June 22, 2017 at 8:35 am
New Ohio State assistant coach Ryan Pedon
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Ohio State basketball is currently in the middle of an overhaul.

Not in terms of personnel, of course, but in coaching style and culture. Chris Holtmann is now the Buckeyes’ head coach and he brought his entire coaching staff over from Butler. There will be changes, both tactical and non-tactical.

This is a story about those tactical changes, and what Ohio State fans can expect from Holtmann and his staff.

Under previous head coach Thad Matta, the Buckeyes had both an offensive and defensive coordinator. Chris Jent handled Ohio State’s offense last year while Greg Paulus worked with the defense.

Holtmann’s staff has a similar alignment.

Ryan Pedon will be in charge of the Buckeyes’ offense, Terry Johnson will guide the defense and Mike Schrage handles personnel, according to the new Ohio State assistant coaches themselves.

“We just complement each other so well and that is great especially when you’re putting a team together. The players see that and that gives confidence to them that we know what we’re doing. They all feed off each other and we want them to feed off us as well.”– Ohio State assistant coach Terry Johnson

“Mike is very, very detail-oriented and Terry knows our system, our defensive system inside and out,” Pedon said. "And, of course, on offense, we’ve got principles that we’ll always stick to but offense is an ever evolving side of the ball because you want to play to your strengths and that can vary from team to team and year to year. Obviously, when you have a whole new group of personnel like we’re going to become accustomed to that’s going to be important that we identify that.”

It’s a small sample size, but Butler’s offense ranked in the top-20 nationally in each of Pedon’s two seasons as part of Holtmann’s staff, according to KenPom.com. The Bulldogs ranked 15th in the country in that category during the 2015–16 season (116.9 points per 100 possessions) and 20th in 2016–17 (117.7 points per 100 possessions).

It’s unclear how long Johnson was in charge of Butler’s defense, but in the last three years under Holtmann here is how the Bulldogs ranked nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency: 8th (2014-15, 88.0 points allowed per 100 possessions), 97th ( 2015–16, 99.6 points allowed per 100 possessions), 49th (2016–17, 97.0 points allowed per 100 possessions).

Schrage’s job is a little bit different. Rather than focus on a specific side of the ball, he focuses on the scouting aspect of the opposition, their personnel, and how Ohio State can attack individual players and matchups.

“When we scout a team, Coach Pedon will focus on the other team’s defense to prepare our offense and Coach Johnson will prepare on the other team’s offense for our defense,” Schrage said. “I’ll just focus on the personnel. Coach Holtmann likes the idea of someone just focusing on personnel completely.

“I focus on personnel and you just learn in and out their tendencies and their favorites. It gives me a chance to really zero in on that and I think it makes a difference.”

The formula worked quite well for the foursome while at Butler, so it’s going to keep doing the same thing here at Ohio State. The continuity amongst this coaching staff is awfully important during this summer of transition for the Buckeyes.

The hope, of course, is this style works as well in Columbus as it did in Indianapolis.

“We just complement each other so well and that is great especially when you’re putting a team together,” Johnson said. “The players see that and that gives confidence to them that we know what we’re doing. They all feed off each other and we want them to feed off us as well.”

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