Chris Holtmann, Archie Miller Will Always be Compared

OSU, Indiana coaches trying to build programs from same starting position

As long as they remain the respective coaches at Ohio State and Indiana, there will exist an uncomfortable, comparative dynamic between Chris Holtmann and Archie Miller.

Each knows the job the other has could have been, and likely would have been, his had circumstances unfolded on a different schedule at the close of the 2017 season.

Indiana, where basketball rests atop the athletic food chain like football does at OSU, decisively determined that nine seasons of Tom Crean without an Elite Eight appearance were quite enough and fired him on March 16.

Meanwhile, over in Columbus, Ohio State dithered until June 5 to fire Thad Matta after some early-summer recruiting disappointments rousted athletic director Gene Smith awake and forced his hand after two straight NIT appearances following a school-record seven straight NCAA trips.

By the time Smith did the distastetful, but necessary, Indiana had already hired Miller away from Dayton.

He would have been the clear choice to take over for Matta, not only because Miller's Flyers had beaten OSU in the NCAA first round in 2014, but because he'd been a three-year Matta assistant in Columbus.

Smith practically had to beg Holtmann away from Butler, finally tendering an eight-year contact, after tepid interest in the job greeted its less-than-ideal opening on the cusp of the summer recruiting season.

It's not a stretch to assume that had OSU beaten Indiana to Miller, the Hoosiers would have targeted Holtmann -- given his success at Butler, 50 miles from Bloomington -- as their second option.

That explains why these two still-young coaches -- Holtmann is 48; Miller is 41 -- will be inextricably linked, and never more so than when their teams play each other.

That will happen again at noon Saturday in Value City Arena, where OSU (13-7, 3-6 Big Ten) faces a virtual must-win game against the Hoosiers (15-6, 5-5).

Indiana already handled the Buckeyes in the teams' first meeting in Bloomington, 66-54.

That was Miller's first win over Holtmann in three tries in their current jobs, and gives IU a leg up on Ohio State in NCAA Tournament bubble conversations.

A sweep by the Hoosiers, given that OSU is already perilously under-.500 in league play, would combine with Minnesota's sweep of the Buckeyes to put Holtmann's program on the wrong side of an either-or argument with likely competition for a spot in the Big Dance.

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