Daily News | Villanova-Ohio State is a clash between places where basketball matters and where it matters more | Mike Sielski
PITTSBURGH — As half of Butler’s student body stormed the court at Hinkle Fieldhouse one night in January 2017, an eight-point Bulldogs victory over the nation’s top-ranked team igniting the most common celebration in college basketball, Jay Wright crossed midcourt, gripped Chris Holtmann’s hand, and gave him a gesture of genuine grace that Holtmann still treasures..
Holtmann is now the head coach at Ohio State, Villanova’s opponent here Sunday in this tournament’s round of 32. And his four years as an assistant and head coach at Butler and in the Big East give him an understanding of and appreciation for the difference between basketball’s status at a football-first university and a school where nothing compares to March Madness. No one would or should argue that Sunday’s matchup matters less to Holtmann or his players than it does to Wright and his.
“They’ve really sold it as a basketball-first league, and I think it’s played to their benefit,” Holtmann said Saturday. “Obviously the addition of UConn has helped. It’s a tremendous basketball league, and I get why you would sell something. They’ve got really strong brands, basketball brands, that have had great success and won national championships and been to Final Fours – a lot of similar-sized institutions.
“If you grow up in the Midwest and you’re kind of a Big Ten guy, that’s your idea of college athletics, these huge schools,” Wright said. “That’s the reason we don’t go out there a lot, because if you think that college is Ohio State and you come and visit Villanova, that’s a whole ‘nother world, right? It looks like a high school compared to that.”
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