Oller: Have Buckeyes reached rock bottom? Loss to IU feels like another nail in coffin
The Value City Mausoleum doubled as a makeshift morgue Tuesday night. Cold and lifeless. No body bags or toe tags, but the smell of decay was unmistakable.
The victims? You may assume Ohio State men’s basketball and coaching staff, but this program has caused its own demise. How it happened is open for debate. That it happened is not.
The true victims are the fans, who after back-to-back seasons of being underwhelmed by the product on the court, and by those doing the coaching, are either dying or already dead to any hope of seeing improvement. That does not mean they are silent. Hardly. Check out the comments on Gene Smith’s Twitter/X account, when he posts about men’s basketball, to see how badly many want Chris Holtmann fired.
But social media mayhem is not the only thing making the rounds. Even in casual conversations at church, work and home, Holtmann’s employment is being questioned. That’s what happens when you lose five in a row and eight of nine – one season after losing nine in a row and 14 of 15 on the way to a 16-19 season that included no NCAA Tournament.
And now missing out on March Madness for a second straight season appears inevitable. The Buckeyes (13-9, 3-10) likely need to win seven of their remaining eight regular-season games and then do some damage in the Big Ten tournament to be included in the bracketology fun.
Tuesday was the second time this season OSU blew an 18-point second-half lead. First came Penn State on Dec. 9. This time it was Indiana, which for 20 minutes looked incapable of even beating either of the biddy basketball teams that provided halftime entertainment. Then over the final 20 minutes the Hoosiers made Ohio State look like a slug without an ounce of mental toughness or physical tenacity. End result: IU outscored the Buckeyes 23-8 over the last 7:01 and won 76-73.
Fans can stomach some losing. They can’t stomach a team that looks lost, which largely explains the increasing apathy among the watch-in-person portion of Buckeye Nation.
Before the crowd of 11,157 showed up Tuesday in hopes of seeing a rare OSU win, attendance through 12 home games averaged 10,531, lowest since the arena opened in 1998-99 and a 13% drop from last season. Five games have attracted fewer than 10,000 fans, and the 7,929 who trickled in to watch the Buckeyes against Merrimack on Nov. 15 constituted the smallest crowd for a regular-season game in the arena’s 25-year history.
The Indiana game was broadcast on Peacock, a subscription TV service viewers cannot get on their cable package. Yet fewer than 12,000 fans filled the seats, despite tickets in the upper bowl selling for $1 on SeatGeek.
Losing games is one thing, but when the financial bottom line begins to take a hit, well, that gets an athletic department’s attention faster than anything. Lower ticket sales have already cost OSU more than $500,000 in revenue compared to last season, when attendance averaged 12,181.
Contacted Tuesday afternoon, Smith said he was “anxious to see how the season plays out” but declined to comment on how concerned he was with the drop in attendance.
Attendance numbers shed light on the interest fans have in a team. Smaller crowds indicate less buzz around the program. This season has lacked the excitement and entertainment value of previous OSU seasons.
The 2006-07 Buckeyes who reached the NCAA Tournament championship game also were winners at the box office, ranking No. 1 in Big Ten attendance at 17,530. The ranking never dipped below fifth over the next eight seasons, when Jared Sullinger, David Lighty, Aaron Craft, Jon Diebler and Evan Turner were winning the adoration of fans who appreciated beautiful basketball.
The numbers dipped during Thad Matta’s final few seasons and have never fully recovered. Under Holtmann, Ohio State’s average home attendance climbed during each of his first three seasons. The Buckeyes averaged 15,794 fans in 2019-20, their most since 2013-14, and averaged 13,276 and 12,181 in the two seasons since fans returned to arenas following the 2020 pandemic year. Still, since Holtmann arrived in 2017-18 Ohio State has ranked seventh in Big Ten attendance every season except last year, when the Buckeyes ranked ninth. They rank ninth again this season.
Fan engagement mostly comes with winning, but playing style also matters. These Buckeyes don’t move the meter with their play. Too much dribbling. Not enough scoring. And defense that comes and goes. It came and went against Indiana over a final 20 final minutes that were hard to watch. Adding to the insult, the Hoosiers played without their best on-ball defender, Xavier Johnson.
Holtmann was clipped in his answers to postgame questions, repeating several times how the Buckeyes were not aggressive enough on either end of the floor.
“We’ve got great kids, but need to see some results here,” he said.
Can the Buckeyes turn it around quickly enough to win 20 games?
Sophomore guard Roddy Gayle Jr. thinks so.
“Anything is possible with a little bit of hope,” he said.
Maybe. But Tuesday’s gut punch of a loss felt like the last bit of life leaving the Buckeyes.
Get more Ohio State basketball news by listening to our podcasts
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State basketball loses another heartbreaker in final seconds
