Chris Holtmann furiously waved both of his hands together in the air like Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk.
No, he wasn’t trying to will an airborne baseball to the right of the left-field foul pole in the 1975 American League Championship Series. He just wanted Ohio State to play some defense and, after increasingly struggling to do so for months, shut down easy shots from behind the 3-point arc.
The flailing worked for Fisk 45 years ago, and it worked for Holtmann on Saturday.
Moments after Holtmann called for his guards to pressure the Boilermakers’ backcourt so as not to allow any space, CJ Walker stole the ball and raced down the court.