Ohio State basketball might be a top 15 level job nationally. Certainly, it has the potential to be one of the highest compensated in the nation. Indeed THE Ohio State University has one of the wealthiest and most lucrative athletic departments around.
However, this late in the cycle, I can’t really see Columbus landing one of the top tier candidates. Federal law mandates you include Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall in any coaching search column, but I just can’t see that realistically happening. The evil Koch brothers funnel so much money into that school that he earns over $3 million a year.
Your given Ohio State basketball head coaching candidates listicles often include Billy Donovan as well.
Keep dreaming.
It’s just not going to happen right here, right now. Matta leaves behind a very difficult situation for his successor. With only nine scholarship players on hand, they are one short of a full roster. Also, he hasn’t recruited a single player ranked as a top 40 recruit since 2014. OSU missed the postseason this past year and were relegated to the NIT in 2016.
Given the very complicated messy divorce between Ohio State basketball and Thad Matta today, next year could be a struggle as well. Athletic Director Gene Smith has a big war chest and an elite tradition to sell. That’s the good news.
On the down side, he’s painted himself into a corner and put Ohio State basketball in panic buy mode.
Buzz Williams
He hasn’t done anything special at Virginia Tech, and for the life of me I don’t understand why he made the step down to Va tech from Marquette in the first place. However, he has made the NCAA Tournament in six of his last eight seasons, and at 44 years of age, he is considered one of the industry’s up-and-comers.
He’s definitely not the home run hire as he hasn’t accomplished anything big yet, but if this your equivalent of a high school senior applying for college “safety school,” then this isn’t a bad choice at all.
Chris Mack
He already has his dream job so he could be very difficult to uproot. This does seem like a natural fit though up on first glance given how “X gonna give it to ya” is how/where OSU found both Matta and current women’s basketball coach Kevin McGuff. Both came from Xavier. Mack boasts four Sweet Sixteens and a 67% winning percentage.
Mick Cronin
He’s at home, both literally and figuratively, in Cincinnati, so again uprooting him could be challenging. Although Cincy hasn’t really made much noise lately, certainly not on a national scale, Cronin boasts a solid resume. He’s taken the Bearcats to the last seven NCAA Tournaments, and he boasts a 64% winning percentage.
Tom Crean
For as much maligned as he is, Crean is a decent coach, and one hell of a recruiter.
You know he’s 1.) available and 2.) knows thew conference very well. Of course, this might be a hard sell to the Ohio State basketball base, and he won’t come cheap either. However, Smith should at least call, and if he wants to wrap this up sooner rather than later, Crean might be a good choice.
Chris Holtmann
He is 70-31 over three seasons at Butler, making the NCAA Tournament all three times while consistently being barraged with questions about his interest in/connection to open jobs elsewhere. He is a pro’s pro when it comes to answering all those queries about bigger gigs, always giving the most banal of platitudes possible.
He was just recently rewarded with a very long contract extension, but as we’ve seen multiple times, those don’t really mean all that much. Like his stellar predecessors in Hinkle Fieldhouse, he will jump for a bigger job sometime, maybe Ohio State basketball should be that gig.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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