Following a loss at Michigan State to conclude the regular season, the Ohio State men’s basketball team enters the Big Ten Tournament.
The No. 10-seeded Buckeyes will take on No. 7-seeded Purdue at Banker Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis at 6:30 p.m. ET on March 12.
Head coach Chris Holtmann previewed Purdue and the Big Ten Tournament as his March 11 press conference.
- Looking forward to tournament play. It’s an exciting time of year.
- We play an outstanding opponent in Purdue. They are a really good team, very well-coached and a great rebounding team.
- They are great at turning you over.
- They can shoot it and they can score in the
- I want to congratulate Kaleb Wesson on being all-conference. He’s been really consistent with his effort and impact on both ends.
- Kyle Young is day-to-day. We have to see more from him in practice. We might not have a great feel until we get into game-action activities. He has been very limited.
- If Young can play, we’re going to try and play him. But we are also mindful that there is more to come.
- When you play a team a second time, they will make adjustments and have counters for what we do. We will have to react to that.
- We were good defensively against them last time. They got some clean looks that they missed; we have to expect them to make those.
- We will have to expect a road environment playing in Indianapolis.
- C.J. Walker has been great. Consistent is the best word for him.
- Walker’s maturity, character and understanding really helped us push through our tough stretch in January.
- It’s a great tournament. It’s a tremendous opportunity. It is maybe the best conference tournament out there.
- Regular-season championships and tournament championships are both tremendous accomplishment. The regular-season champ shows consistency.
- I’m not at a point where I can definitively say that DJ Carton will or will not return this season. With only a few weeks left, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
- Conventional wisdom is that you’d rather be the team that lost instead of the team that won when entering a rematch.
- We talked about Coronavirus yesterday, reinforcing the importance of taking care of yourself, washing your hands and getting enough sleep.
- Our season was certainly better than last year in the Big Ten. We were 16-2 at home and 8-2 in league games at home. A couple of those are going to bother you the whole offseason.
- Young teams play better at home, the players feel more comfortable at home. They feel a different level of confidence in their own building. We had fantastic energy with our home crowd.
- Our growth and development was good throughout the whole season.
- Against Michigan State, I felt like we didn’t have the necessary collective effort defensively. Andre Wesson needs to bring more energy and lead us in that way, because that’s who he is.
- Sit-one transfers? It’s good for them to take a step back and see. We’re coming to a day where that probably won’t happen with guys becoming eligible right away in the future.
- Walker had a chance to see how we did things. There are still growing pains to go through when you step into a role.
- We’ve been trying to move offensive stuff toward E.J. Liddell’s direction. We’ve been trying to add some wrinkles to benefit for him.
- Alonzo Gaffney will not be available.
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