Of course the naysayers come out of the woodwork. Predictable as about 20% of Buckeye "fans" are not realistic.
Clearly the Buckeyes came out mentally unprepared; they looked like they expected to just win based on reputation. Holtmann accepted blame for that in the postgame presser. But the Bucks did play hard the 2nd half. As for the nitwits that want Holtmann fired, here are a couple of facts:
1) They do not hand out 2nd seeds to bad teams. They had a great year, and with the returning guys and a great recruiting class, the trajectory is up.
2) Holtmann was not 9-18 (50%) from the foul line, his team was. Been a strength all year (76%), had a bad day.
3) Holtmann was not 5-23 (21%) on 3-pointers, his team was. 36% all year, had a bad day.
4) Holtmann did not make the careless turnovers, his team did. 16 of them, averaged 10 per game all year.
A terrible game, and it hurts. Holtmann of course took the ownership in the post game, as you would expect from a quality man like him. Sure the preparation could have been different, but at the end of the day, a bunch of 20 year-olds who have been so mentally tough all year did not have the right frame of mind for the game. And it cost them.
My primary beef with Holtmann's plan was that he puts the ball in Duane's hands too much at clutch time. Duane is an electric scorer but yesterday he shot terribly. That ball had to be in CJ's hands and dumped in to EJ at the end of regulation. Should he be fired? only if you are an overly emotional child with ridiculous expectations. He is a solid coach, a quality man, and he recruits great kids. And he has the program moving up. Hope he is our coach for a long time.