OSU MEN’S BASKETBALL
Buckeyes are living for moment
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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The Ohio State men’s basketball team was so far under the radar when practice began 4½ months ago that the class of 2006 everyone talked about was not the four seniors on the team but the four recruits still in high school.
"It was the talk of the town," center Terence Dials said of the hype surrounding blue-chip recruits Greg Oden, Daequan Cook, Mike Conley Jr. and Dave Lighty.
It was not the talk of the team, though, at least not for long. Coach Thad Matta, who does not waste time on much other than the here and now, mentioned it one time.
"He said, ‘What about you guys?’ " guard Je’Kel Foster said.
"He said we had to come together this year, make something of this year, and let next year take care of next year.
"When everybody asked me about the next class coming in, I said I’m not going to be here next year. When they come here, best wishes to those guys. But we’re taking care of business right now. You have to live for the moment."
The ninth-ranked Buckeyes (21-4, 10-4) can capture the moment tonight at Northwestern (13-13, 5-9), where a victory will clinch a share of the Big Ten championship.
Wins tonight and Sunday, at home against Purdue on Senior Day, would give them the title outright for the first time since 1992 and just the second time in 35 years.
Ohio State went into the season pegged by prognosticators as one of seven or eight Big Ten teams good enough to make the NCAA Tournament but probably not good enough to finish higher than fourth in the conference.
"That’s the beauty of it," Foster said. "Nobody gave us a chance."
Six wins in their past seven Big Ten games — three over ranked teams, two on the road, at Michigan and Michigan State — have given the Buckeyes that chance. They have done it with an offense that has been the Big Ten’s most productive and efficient since the start of the season and a defense that has tightened lately, especially on the interior.
"The only way we got them was they weren’t shooting the three well," said coach Bo Ryan of Wisconsin, the only team to beat Ohio State in February, on a night the Buckeyes made 4 of 17 three-point attempts. "Because when they’re hitting their threes and Dials is playing the way he’s playing (five consecutive double-doubles) and defensively they’re helping one another a little bit better, it just makes for a good team."
Matta said the improvement of the defense has been a major factor in the Buckeyes’ surge — and that it was hard being patient while it developed.
"As a coach, you can lose your mind early on if you’re trying to . . . get all your pieces put together too quick," he said. "It’s hard, with the scrutiny you’re under, saying in December, ‘Yeah, we weren’t real good in that, but we’re going to get better at it.’
"The No. 1 thing I wanted these guys to (have) early in the year was competitiveness and a thirst to win. People don’t realize how long a college basketball season can be. Even at Xavier, the year we were 10-9 (in January), I didn’t panic because I’m saying to myself, ‘We’ve played some great basketball throughout the course of this young season, now we just have to find how to put it all together.’ Sometimes it’s hard, but you can’t ever lose sight of that as a coach."
Now Ohio State is in everyone’s sights, on everyone’s radar, and relishing the attention. As J.J. Sullinger prepared to leave for his final Big Ten road game yesterday, he smiled in anticipation of the hostile reception the Buckeyes will receive from Northwestern students tonight. They had the same treatment at Michigan State last week.
"People love to be hating," Sullinger said. "We use the phrase, ‘They hate us because they ain’t us.’ "
No one else is at this moment.
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