Prior to Sunday afternoon’s game between Ohio State and Illinois, Buckeye head coach Chris Holtmann announced that senior guard Kam Williams had been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules.
Following OSU’s 75-67 win over the Illini, Holtmann expounded on the suspension, but never indicated exactly what the violation was.
It was clear, however, that this had been brewing for at least a little while.
“I think it was something that we were in the process of kind of deciding on, really, the last couple of days,” Holtmann said. “Saturday I think we knew for sure, Saturday night exactly, kind of what all that was going to look like.”
The indefinite nature of the suspension means that there is no specific timetable for Williams’ return, and it will depend upon a number of factors. The good news for the Buckeyes is that Holtmann does expect him back eventually.
“We expect him back at some point, but it’s really going to be a day-to-day decision, and at this point he needs to do some things and we need to have more conversations,” he said. “Until I feel comfortable with that, I don’t expect him to play. But it will be a day-to-day situation.”
Ohio State heads west for its biggest game of the season this Wednesday when they travel to No. 3 Purdue in West Lafayette. The question now becomes whether or not Williams will be with the team when they hit the road.
“We have not made that decision yet,” he said. “That will be something we’ll look at here in the next day or two. Right now, the plan is to go there with him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to play.”
No suspensions come at a good time, but this one is especially ill-timed because the Buckeyes are hitting the toughest part of their schedule right now. With four road games in OSU’s final six regular season contests, Ohio State needs to be playing at their best. That will be very difficult to do without one of their best shooters. As Illinois showed on Sunday, the Buckeyes become easier to defend without Kam Williams out there to help stretch the court.
It’s a let down for everyone.
“I think Kam and everyone was disappointed because, listen, this is special what this group is doing right now,” Holtmann said. “This is special. I don’t ever want to take that for granted, so to have a little bit of a hiccup with a guy who has really been a big part of it, he’s been an important of it, I think it’s frustrating, it’s disappointing. I know he is frustrated and disappointed.
“We’ll see how he responds, but I give our guys that played today and everybody that was there a lot of credit for being able to gut this one out. We’ll see how this impacts us moving forward and we’ll see how quickly we decide to have Kam back.”
I sure hope Cam does whatever he has to do to regain Holtmann’s trust.
We really missed his quickness and scoring threat Saturday. Besides, it is his senior year and he doesn’t have many games left.