One year later: How Ohio State and Chris Holtmann have moved on from their Valentine's Day split

It's been exactly a year since Ohio State fired longtime coach Chris Holtmann on Valentine's Day of 2024. The Buckeyes were 14-11 overall, and 4-10 in Big Ten play -- including nine losses in the final 11 games of Holtmann's tenure.

The final straw that led to Holtmann's firing was a 62-54 loss to then No. 20 Wisconsin on the road. While a road loss to a ranked team in a vacuum isn't the end of the world, it was part of a larger trend that landed Holtmann on the hot seat. The loss to Wisconsin marked Ohio State's 16th consecutive loss on the road in Big Ten play.

Ohio State's conference losing streak on the road spanned more than 400 days before it was finally snapped with a win against Michigan State when interim coach Jake Diebler took over the program.

By now you know what happened next. Ohio State finished 8-3 under interim Diebler and reached the NIT quarterfinals before losing to Georgia. CBS Sports' Matt Norlander reported shortly after Arkansas hired John Calipari that the former Kentucky coach "privately expressed significant/serious interest in the job" but the timing wasn't right.

Ohio State instead elected to remove the interim tag from Diebler's title and gave him a five-year contract to lead the program. Holtmann headed to DePaul, one of the toughest jobs in college basketball. Taking a job immediately reduced his Ohio State buyout from $15 million to around $8.5 million, but that's still a ton of money. A year after the breakup, here's what each party is up to. 

Ohio State eyes return to Big Dance this spring

The gamble on Diebler has been a good one. Ohio State (15-10, 7-7 Big Ten) is currently on the No. 9 seed line in CBS Sports' latest Bracketology projections from Jerry Palm, and barring a late-season, collapse will reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022.

Year 1 (officially) of the Diebler era started with a bang. Ohio State defeated Texas 80-72 in the season-opener in Las Vegas and got off to a 5-1 start. Fast forward to the present and Ohio State has won four of its last seven games in Big Ten play, which includes victories over Purdue, Iowa, Maryland and most recently, Washington earlier this week.

Ohio State is betting big on Jake Diebler, the Big Ten's youngest coach, being a little bit different

Isaac Trotter

One of the biggest tests of Ohio State's season will come this weekend when the Buckeyes host No. 20 Michigan on Sunday on CBS. The Wolverines were in a similar position as their arch-rival last season after firing program alumni Juwan Howard after five seasons. Michigan moved fast to find Howard's replacement and zeroed in on FAU coach Dusty May. In Year 1 of May's tenure, Michigan sits atop the Big Ten standings heading into the home stretch. Ohio State has played the most ranked foes of anybody in the Big Ten and Sunday will be its 11th of those such games. 

Most games vs. ranked opponents (Big Ten teams)

How Ohio State rebuilt its roster/key stats to fuel the turnaround

When Diebler was promoted as Ohio State's full-time coach, he immediately got to work. The Buckeyes were able to retain stars Bruce Thornton and Devin Royal and added transfers Meechie Johnson Jr. (South Carolina), Aaron Bradshaw (Kentucky), Micah Parrish (San Diego State), Sean Stewart (Duke) and Ques Glover (Kansas State) to round out the roster.

One of the biggest newcomers on Ohio State's roster has been freshman guard John Mobley Jr. The No. 49 overall player in the 2024 recruiting cycle by 247Sports is the Buckeyes' third-leading scorer (13.4 points) behind Thornton and Royal and has played an integral role in getting the program back toward NCAA Tournament contention.

A key stat for Ohio State's turnaround this season has been its 3-point offense and defense. Per KenPom, Ohio State ranks 18th in 3-point percentage on offense (38.3) while allowing opponents to shoot just 29.2% from beyond the arc. The latter ranks 11th among all Division l teams.

More stats to back up the turnaround: Ohio State ranks 27th in adjusted efficiency on offense (118.6) and ranks 30th (96.8) in adjusted efficiency on defense, per KenPom. For context, Ohio State ranked 39th on offense and 63rd on defense last season in those categories.

Holtmann gets DePaul over the hump

Days before Ohio State promoted Diebler, Holtmann found a new job as the next coach of DePaul, a program considered a Big East bottom-feeder for the last two decades.

DePaul has made the NCAA Tournament twice since the turn of the century and finished with a winning record in Big East play once since joining the conference during the 2005-06 season. To illustrate what Holtmann was walking into, DePaul had lost 32 consecutive Big East regular-season games dating back to the 2022-23 season. DePaul finished 0-20 in league play during the 2023-24 campaign.

The dreaded conference losing streak stretched into this season before Holtmann's team snapped it after 39 games following a 73-68 win over Georgetown. DePaul has since won another Big East game against Seton Hall and sits at 2-12 in league play.

"I'm under no illusions that this is going to be easy," Holtmann told Norlander before the start of the season about the rebuild at DePaul. "Like, I get it."

While this year might not be a dramatic home run success, there are signs of drastic improvement within the program. DePaul got off to its best start (6-0) in 33 years after winning just 13 games total the last two seasons.

DePaul finished last season ranked No. 304 in KenPom's rankings out of 362 teams and was the lowest ranked high-major on the list. Heading into the weekend, DePaul is No. 122 in the rankings, which isn't the lowest-ranked high-major team in the sport. That (dis)honor goes to Boston College, ranked No. 209 in KenPom's rankings.

Ohio State has positioned itself to get back to the NCAA Tournament. DePaul has shown improvement under Holtmann that is sustainable. The bottom line? Both programs are better off right now than they were around this time last year.