You may exhale now. Chris Holtmann is the new head coach at Ohio State.

Personally, the reports that Bob Huggins was trying to get the Ohio State job didn’t work for me. I posted it here yesterday, pretty clearly, I think, as a conversation piece and not as a revelation of any sort. I checked in with Huggins, as a matter of necessity and, honestly, wondering if he might swat it down in character.

I never heard back, which is actually pretty rare when it comes to my interactions with Huggins, but that meant he was probably busy doing a dozen other things and was not going to lend his name or voice to a conversation he found to be silly. (In fact, I think he was in Glade Springs working on a television show of some sort.) While doing other things, I talked to some people who cross paths with Huggins, and what those People told me was Huggins actually brought it up and laughed it off.

I think this got whatever traction it had for a few reasons.

1. It’s June.
2. Huggins has obvious ties to Ohio.
3. In a different stage of his life, Huggins revered Ohio State and would have been proud and honored to slide his stool to the front of the bench in Columbus.
4. He’s Bob Huggins.

So what now? WVU beat Ohio State for Esa Ahmad. Derek Culver was the top-rated player in the state when he committed. Ohio is really important to Huggins and to the Mountaineers. Holtmann will commit himself to the state, but so, too, will the Mountaineers. They’ve offered more scholarships in Ohio for the 2018 class than any other state and have fixed their sight on a candidate for 2019.