So when will Ohio State and Dayton play again? Possibility exists after charity game
DAYTON – Chris Holtmann cut the question off before it reached its conclusion.
“Eighty-eight,” he said, a well-practiced answer citing a statistic that by now is well-ingrained inside the head of the Ohio State men’s basketball coach. Sunday night, Holtmann’s immediate recall reflected not only the charity exhibition game that had just concluded but the inevitability of the follow-up questions.
For the first time since 1988, when Holtmann was a junior in high school, the Flyers hosted the Buckeyes on their home court. True, the game didn’t officially count. Both coaches rotated players more liberally than they will when things get underway for real in a few weeks, and Dayton’s administration even publicly asked the home fans to treat the visitors with the respect befitting the occasion.
This was a game played to raise funds and awareness for mental health causes, one put together by Dayton coach Anthony Grant. It was his call to Holtmann that got the Buckeyes on board. Ohio State won, 78-70, in front of a sold-out crowd of 13,409 at UD Arena.
So, when’s the rematch? It was a topic Grant had little interest addressing in the immediate aftermath of the game.
“The last thing I want is for somebody to take this to somewhere that it shouldn’t be just with some silly conversation about, ‘Well, they should do this,’ ” the Dayton coach said. “That’s not what today was about at all. I’m grateful for Chris. I’m grateful for the Ohio State University helping us hopefully make a difference.”
Ohio State has played here more recently than the late 80s. The Buckeyes beat Iona and Iowa State in the first two rounds of the 2013 NCAA Tournament with Dayton as a host city, but their last meeting with the Flyers didn’t go so well. That game, a first-round NCAA Tournament showdown in Buffalo on March 20, 2014, ended with a 60-59 loss at the hands of No. 11 seed Dayton.
In all, Ohio State is 4-3 in official games at this arena and also 4-3 all-time against the Flyers.
Leading into this exhibition game, Holtmann made it clear he’s open to the idea of scheduling a home-and-home series with the Flyers. The specifics, though, have remained elusive, even if the coach joked that a few extra-interested observers were hesitant to let him leave without a plan.
“It was hard to get out of the arena without several of them grabbing me and asking me if we had signed the contract for the next home-and-home agreement yet,” he said. “It’s something we’ll definitely consider. We love to play good teams, top-50 NET teams, in home-and-homes, NCAA Tournament teams, and that’s what I believe this Dayton team will be this year.”
The two programs nearly did agree to at least one game against each other during the COVID-19 pandemic, when teams were occasionally scrambling to find opponents with little notice.
“He and I had multiple conversations when they were canceling games and we weren’t quite sure who could play,” Grant said. “We were probably within 24 hours away from having a game against them, so he’s always been really good in terms of his willingness to have that conversation. We’ll see.”
In that case, Grant said a combination of injuries and positive COVID tests combined to scuttle the game.
During his first six years at Ohio State, Holtmann scheduled a home-and-home with Cincinnati and has also played at Xavier as part of the Gavitt Games. Holtmann was complementary of the Dayton fans and their hospitality, lauding the environment at UD Arena as among the nation’s best.
“I’ve coached college basketball for 25 years and for 25 years I’ve known that this place is one of the greatest basketball environments in the sport,” he said. “The Dayton fans were incredible. They didn’t need to be too nice. I appreciate how hospitable this place was.”
Should that home-and-home series come to fruition, the Buckeyes aren’t likely to get the same reception. Sunday night, though, that didn’t matter.
“I give their administration a lot of credit just because I thought it was, they made it clear what this game was about,” Holtmann said.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: After charity game, will Ohio State, Dayton play home-and-home series?
