Ohio State's Chris Holtmann Campaigns For E.J. Liddell To Be Named Big Ten Player Of The Year

The junior forward recorded his 10th 20-point game of the season in Saturday night's win at Michigan.

Ohio State junior forward E.J. Liddell had another impressive game on Saturday evening, scoring 28 points, pulling down five rebounds and blocking three shots to lead the Buckeyes to a 68-57 win at Michigan.

It's usually hard for a performance like that to go unnoticed, but Liddell’s efforts this season have largely been ignored by the national and regional media members who will soon vote on who they feel is the player of the year in the Big Ten.

That’s why head coach Chris Holtmann was literally pounding the table for Liddell during his postgame press conference.

“Will somebody please – outside of the people who cover our program – start talking about E.J. as a player of the year (candidate) in this league. He is deserving,” Holtmann said. “I’m on him as much as anybody every day, but I don’t hear his name mentioned. I don’t know why I don’t hear his name mentioned.

“Granted, we have to keep winning, but he’s got to be mentioned in this conversation. The year he’s had has been phenomenal and he’s getting better at leading on (the defensive) end. The year is not over and he has to keep working, but E.J. Liddell is deserving to be in the conversation of player of the year in this league as long as we keep doing well.”

For the second game in a row, Ohio State held a late lead on the road. But unlike Wednesday night at Rutgers, when the Buckeyes blew an eight-point advantage in a 66-64 loss, Liddell made sure they headed home with a win this time around.

In fact, with just over four minutes remaining and Ohio State leading by five points, fifth-year senior guard Cedric Russell found Liddell for a corner three that pushed the lead to eight. He then effectively sealed the win with four free throws in the final minute, finishing the night a career-best 11-of-11 from the charity stripe.

“That was a big-time shot from a big-time player,” Holtmann said. “That particular play, they had changed their defense and we were able to space them out with a five-out in the corner and E.J. made a big play.”

This marked the 32nd straight game in which the 6-foot-7 Liddell has reached double figures, as well as his 10th 20-point game of the season. He didn’t back down on the defensive side, either, despite being matched up with 7-foot-1 center Hunter Dickinson and 6-foot-11 forward Moussa Diabate in the low post.

“I’ve just seen a lot of growth (from Liddell),” Wolverines head coach Juwan Howard said afterward. “The game has slowed down to him, too. As a freshman, he was putting his head down and going fast, like a lot of freshmen. 

"Then last year, he just made a huge turn. He switched and he became their elite go-to guy along with Duane Washington. And now this year, he’s one of the best players in the Big Ten at the four or five spot.”

Seeing as Howard agrees with Holtmann’s assessment, maybe Liddell will finally start to hear his name mentioned alongside the likes of Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn, Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis, Iowa’s Keegan Murray, Purdue’s Jaden Ivey and Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis when outsiders discuss who is in the running for the conference’s player of the year.

But if not, you can expect a similar outburst from Holtmann when Liddell leads the Buckeyes to another big win in the coming weeks.

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