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2014-15 Ohio State Men's Basketball (Official Thread)

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bigdog3300 said:
How much of this are we going to put on the coaching staff for the lack of player development?

This senior class came in with much acclaim; a top 10 class. 3 Top 50 guys. We've seen no improvement out of the bigs and while Scott and Thompson have had good careers they haven't improved as expected either.
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Some of it has to be on the coaches in development but also over evaluated the talent of the three primary recruits. IMO, the coaches "missed on Scott, Thompson and Williams" as far as over-estimating what they brought to the table in ALL facets of the game. As far as McDonald goes, how many of us on this board expected him to contribute much while at Ohio State? Honestly, I think he brings more to the team than Williams does.

But how much of it do you put on coaches when you also have to question the work ethic of the players we are talking about. These guys are seniors for crying out loud. I have been waiting on Sam Thompson to really step up and I really though at some point the light would come on for him. I guessed wrong on him too.

When Ohio State misses on Ohio kids like i.e, Trey Burke, Adam White, and others and goes after out of state kids instead makes me question the recruiting philosophy of Coach Matta. Granted you can't get them all but why are kids in our backyard not getting recruited as hard as out of state kids (this year being the exception with several top Ohio kids leaving the state to go elsewhere with TOSU offers?) Anybody with answers that make sense, please respond.
 
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bigdog3300 said:
How much of this are we going to put on the coaching staff for the lack of player development?

This senior class came in with much acclaim; a top 10 class. 3 Top 50 guys. We've seen no improvement out of the bigs and while Scott and Thompson have had good careers they haven't improved as expected either.
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I guess this is the $1,000,000 question that we'll never have the answer to. Even Thad Matta made the comment two years ago that Sam Thompson could be one of the best ever before leaving OSU. Sam's a solid player, but definitely not the superstar I had hoped we'd see at this point.

Would these guys have developed more under a different coaching staff? Do some players just not have it in them to develop, regardless of the coaching staff? I don't know the answer to these questions. How much credit for Evan Turner's development can be credited to Matta? He's an example of a player on the other end of the development spectrum.
 
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Just in the recruiting forum people thought Scott was going to be all everything..NOT..I'm giving Matta a pass on this class Williams Scott and Thompson were seen as solid almost great recruits at the time. Matta won't throw them under the BUS but since the beginning of last year he has seemed as frustrated as we are.
 
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I've seen a couple of HS games in the last 2 months. In those games, Mitchell and Giddens were the 3rd or 4th best players on their teams. In fact, Mitchell has dropped out of the top 100. There was a comment on another thread mentioning how Harris got schooled by junior in a game the person had attended. I haven't heard much about Grandstaff. I hate to be a Debby Downer, but am afraid that the future may also be at risk
 
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cslewis said:
I've seen a couple of HS games in the last 2 months. In those games, Mitchell and Giddens were the 3rd or 4th best players on their teams. In fact, Mitchell has dropped out of the top 100. There was a comment on another thread mentioning how Harris got schooled by junior in a game the person had attended. I haven't heard much about Grandstaff. I hate to be a Debby Downer, but am afraid that the future may also be at risk
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there is a Recruiting Forum where you can discuss individual recruits for next season. I do not think this is the appropriate place for that type of discussion. Plus, you might learn something about the recruits that you mentioned in that forum.
 
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Ok. Back off the edge a little bit...

The next 6 games are huge for the Buckeyes. There should be some winnable games:

An extended break until they play again Thursday-
@NW
IU
Maryland
@Purdue
@Rutgers
Penn State

If they want to get things back on track it starts on Thursday. That could be a 5-1 stretch if they can split one at home between IU/Maryland. I would love to see it.

Then again, I'm a big proponent of "past results indicate future outcomes" and nothing shows this team can compete consistently. They could struggle to go 3-3.

Something has to click with these extra days off.
 
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buckeyebri said:
This team is a train wreck and it is hard to figure out what has/is going wrong. There is talent, but it only shows sporadically.
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I've said it before, but IMO, there is no leader on this team, which is pretty amazing, considering three seniors are in the starting lineup. Russell's probably the closest thing this team has to a leader, and the kid's a true frosh.
 
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I still think the perimeter guys are solid. I'm still waiting for Sam to be more aggressive in key spots of games. Seems like we are back into the "defer to the star mentality" and everyone is standing around waiting for Russell to do something, similar to the the Deshaun Thomas days, and Q's last year. It all stems from not having a dominant post player. Thad missed on Amir and we haven't had a fall back plan inside the past 2 seasons. Can't continue to play him this many minutes. He only gets the rebounds that fall right into his lap. He doesn't work on the offensive end and he always seems to be about two seconds late whatever play he tries to make. We have nobody to take pressure off shooters.
 
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Systems_id said:
Word. This is probably the first recruiting class Thad has completely whiffed on in his ten years here. Not exactly something you lose your mind over.
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Just sayin': I don't consider Laquinton Ross a whiff; and (I think) Scott, Williams, and Thompson are good/serviceable "role players", just inconsistent as starters. But who would have guessed it, everyone but McDonald was highly ranked:

http://ohiostate.scout.com/topic/players?type=players&start=0&category="Basketball Recruiting"&classYear="2011"&team="Ohio State"&minimumInterest="SoftVerbal"&sortBy=CommitDate

Now his 2012 class (i.e. Amedeo Della Valle) might have been a total whiff.
 
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