Ohio State fires men's basketball coach Chris Holtmann in middle of his seventh season

Ohio State has fired men's basketball coach Chris Holtmann with one month left in his seventh season with the school.

Holtmean signed an extension in the summer of 2022 that ran through the 2027-28 season, leaving him with four years remaining on his contract. Terms of the deal stipulate Holtmann is due approximately $15.5 million with a duty to mitigate by finding another job and Ohio State is entitled to offset what it owes him based on his pay from the new employment.

The decision by athletic director Gene Smith came one day after Ohio State lost 62-54 at No. 21 Wisconsin to drop to 14-11 overall and 4-10 in the Big Ten.

In seven seasons at Ohio State, Holtmann amassed a record of 137-86 overall and was 67-65 in Big Ten play.

The Buckeyes came a game short of winning the Big Ten in his first season, going 25-9 overall and 15-3 in the league, and reached the NCAA men's tournament. It was the first of four consecutive tournament appearances for the Buckeyes, a figure that does not include a likely appearance in the 2020 tournament that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Buckeyes failed to get out of the first weekend each time.

Most notably the Buckeyes earned a No. 2 seed in 2001 but were upset by No. 15 seed Oral Roberts in the first round.

Things have spiraled the past two seasons. Last year, Ohio State lost 14 of 15 games last season to stumble to a 16-19 overall record and 5-15 mark in the Big Ten. It led to an offseason of soul searching, but that has not produced a turnaround.

This year, the Buckeyes started 12-2 but have lost nine of their past 11 and are again languishing near the bottom of the Big Ten standings. Holtmann has been the subject of some booing at home games as attendance has dwindled at Value City Arena, and the in-arena pregame experience was altered so that the announcer was simply stating rather than shouting Holtmann's name.

After a loss at Northwestern on Jan. 27, Holtmann dismissed the notion that he was coaching for his job and said he was focused only on the team getting better. The next day, Smith told The Columbus Dispatch that, “We have a lot of this season left to play, and we have coaches and players that are focused on winning every day. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out.”

Offered the job within a week of Thad Matta’s firing in May 2017, Holtmann initially turned down the job and was planning to return to Butler for his fourth season. He changed his mind, reached out to Smith and quickly came to an agreement as the athletic director was preparing to offer the position to Creighton coach Greg McDermott.

Holtmann is a three-time Naismith coach of the year finalist and was named coach of the year in the Big South at Gardner Webb in 2013, at Butler in 2017 and at Ohio State in 2018. He recruited, signed and developed Duane Washington Jr., E.J. Liddell, Malaki Branham and Brice Sensabaugh into NBA players and also helped Keita Bates-Diop and Jae'Sean Tate reach the league after inhering them from Matta.

Smith is expected to meet with reporters this evening.

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz