CHICAGO — Chris Holtmann knows what you’re all thinking: DePaul? Really?
A few of his friends questioned his sanity when he told them he was considering the job. Others wanted the former Ohio State coach to make certain he knew what he was walking into. And he did know. It’s arguably the toughest high-major men’s basketball job, a program that hasn’t sniffed the men’s NCAA Tournament in two decades and just completed one of the worst seasons in Big East history.
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So why this job? Why now?
“I asked myself that: Why did I keep coming back to it?” Holtmann said Monday after he was introduced as DePaul’s new head coach. “At the time I took it, I knew there would be additional openings. You hear rumors. I think I could have been in play for some jobs … and I was leaning strongly toward taking a year off and just waiting and seeing.
“But at the end of the day, I really liked the idea of leading a program that is so desperate for success and so hungry for success that is willing to do things in today’s climate to make it more competitive. It is at a real low point, which makes it a situation where you can build it from the ground up.”
He knows just how dire things have been for the Blue Demons. Since joining the Big East conference in 2005-06, DePaul has only two seasons with winning records. This season, DePaul dropped its final 20 games, finishing 0-20 in conference play and ranking 307th of 362 Division I teams, according to KenPom. Hiring Holtmann was a huge coup and the biggest jolt of optimism the program has received in years.
Holtmann was drawn to the job despite the current (and past) state of its program. He credited athletic director DeWayne Peevy and DePaul president Rob Manuel for their vision and support. Holtmann wanted — and received — assurances regarding plans for a new practice facility, which is in the works, and NIL support. He believes both will help him recruit and attract the type of talent he will need to turn things around.
With a 251-171 record as a head coach at Gardner-Webb, Butler and Ohio State, Holtmann brings a great deal of experience to DePaul, including the three seasons with the Bulldogs in the Big East that all culminated in the NCAA tournament. But he’s never been in the situation he’s in now, a month removed from being fired by Ohio State midway through his seventh season — and with a new job more challenging than any situation he’s ever inherited.
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He said the early part of his tenure at Gardner-Webb is most similar to what he’s experiencing now; his team lost 21 games in Year 1 and 20 games in Year 2 before winning 21 games in Year 3. At DePaul, the lows could be lower to start, but Holtmann believes that highs are attainable.
“You have to find kids you can lose with first,” he said. “You are looking for kids that can be there with you in the good times and the bad and keep working and just put one foot in front of the other. They (will) be our foundation.”
And so Holtmann has officially left the football-first world of Ohio State and found himself back in the Big East, a rare league in today’s landscape that keeps basketball as its center and, perhaps not coincidentally, some of the game’s best current coaches. Holtmann knows what it is like for basketball to be part of the fabric of a campus like Butler’s, and he wants to bring that to DePaul. It’s been far too long since it’s felt that way there. It’s been decades since DePaul has been nationally relevant.
“If you said to me, ‘Hey, what was the clincher for you?’ It probably was the challenge of trying to do this,” Holtmann said. “Maybe it’s foolish arrogance, I don’t know. But I think it’s just the challenge of it all, at the end of the day.”
(Photo: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)