Chris Holtmann Hoping For Consistency on Coaching Staff After Early Success

By James Grega on March 22, 2018 at 1:05 pm
Chris Holtmann
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With the landscape of college basketball around the country right now, the opportunities for head coaching jobs might open up more frequently this offseason. 

The payment scandal that has taken over the NCAA and college hoops landscape over the last few months has already sent ripple effects through coaching circles and should some of the bigger names get fired, the chain reaction would open up jobs at smaller schools as coaches move up the ladder. 

After a successful 2017-18 season, it doesn't appear that Chris Holtmann is going anywhere soon, after leading Ohio State to a 25-9 record, the Buckeyes' first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015 and a second-place finish in the Big Ten. 

Holtmann was also named the Big Ten Coach of the Year and his best player, Keita Bates-Diop, earned player of the year honors in the conference as well. So while Holtmann will likely be in Columbus for an extended amount of time, there might be no such guarantee about his assistants: Ryan Pedon, Terry Johnson and Mike Schrage. 

Pedon, a Columbus native, has been with Holtmann since 2015 at Butler but has ties to much of Ohio and the midwest. After playing at Wooster and serving as a grad assistant at Miami (Ohio), Pedon also had roles at Kent State and Illinois before joining the Bulldogs in 2015. 

Johnson had spent his previous 10 years as an assistant at Butler, helping the Bulldogs to a pair of national runner-up finishes, before joining Holtmann in Columbus. Working primarily with the Buckeye big men, Johnson helped turn Kaleb Wesson into a Big Ten All-Freshman team selection as a rookie. 

Schrage might have the most impressive resume of any of Holtmann's assistants, having worked as a student manager for Bob Knight in the late 1990's before serving as director of basketball operations for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke from 2002-2008. From there, he was an assistant at Stanford and Butler before joining the Buckeyes this season. 

After Ohio State's 90-84 loss to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night, Holtmann said he is aware that success could bring job opportunities for his assistants. Should other schools come calling for his staffers, he would view that as a positive sign for the Buckeye program, although he would prefer to retain his current staff for the foreseeable future.

"They keep me informed. They are pretty open and honest about anything that comes up. Obviously when you're taking over a program, you would like to have some consistency within your staff, and they know that," Holtmann said. "When you have success, you're going to lose staff guys at some point. The best way to not lose your staff is to lose, and we would rather not do that."

In the two years that Holtmann and his current staff have been together, the unit has compiled back-to-back 25-9 seasons, with a 3-2 record in the NCAA Tournament and a pair of second-place finishes in the Big East and Big Ten conferences, respectively. 

While it's unlikely that Holtmann loses any of his assistants after year one, it is not completely out of the question considering the landscape of college basketball. For now, however, Holtmann appears to have a staff that can build on a successful first season at Ohio State. 

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