Ohio State Head Coach Chris Holtmann Previews Purdue Matchup, Big Ten Tournament

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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