On Wednesday afternoon, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith made the decision to fire Ohio State men’s basketball coach Chris Holtmann – but it’s clear that the decision was not an easy one for Smith.
Following the move, Gene Smith admitted that it was a tough move to make given his close relationship with Chris Holtmann personally.
“It’s really hard,” Smith said during his press conference according to Eleven Warriors. “When you have good people and you care about people, then it’s hard. When you don’t have a good person, you really don’t care about the person, it’s easier. But when you care about someone like I do, it makes it hard.”
Smith considers Holtmann a friend, but he understands that he has to make the best decisions for the Ohio State program, and he felt that firing Holtmann now was the best move for the program.
“My responsibility is to the program,” Smith said. “It’s to these young men that compete every single day. I don’t care what sport it is, whatever it is, my responsibility is to those young people and to the program. And so I just felt, at this particular time, with six regular season games left and a Big Ten Tournament and whatever the postseason brings, a spark of energy was needed.”
We’ll have to see who Ohio State decides to hire as their next head coach.
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