OSU MEN’S BASKETBALL
Formidable foursome
Seniors fuel Buckeyes’ surprising run to Big Ten championship
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
NEAL C . LAURON | DISPATCH Seniors, from left, Terence Dials, Matt Sylvester, J.J. Sullinger and Je’Kel Foster will play their last game in Value City Arena today.
mated two things: what he calls the "genius" of coach Thad Matta and his staff, and the value of experienced hands in a season in which the Big Ten has a lot of good teams but no great one.
As a result, ninth-ranked Ohio State (22-4, 11-4) can win its first outright conference championship in 14 years today — it plays Purdue (9-17, 3-12) at noon in Value City Arena — in part because of a starting lineup that includes three fifth-year seniors and a fourth who came via junior college.
They arrived at different times and under different circumstances. They leave bonded by the adversity they’ve
Truth be told now, Matt Sylvester saw what many Big Ten basketball observers did before the season.
"As much confidence as I had in myself and my teammates, I looked at us as maybe a middle-of-the-pack type of team," he said.
That’s all Sylvester had known in the three previous seasons he had played for the Ohio State men’s basketball team. The Buckeyes finished eighth, ninth and sixth, respectively, in the Big Ten those years.
In retrospect, Sylvester underestishared, some more than others, and the joint captaincy Matta awarded them their final season because of the leadership abilities he saw in each.
"I wanted them to know this was their team, and I wanted them to have tremendous responsibility for this team," said Matta, who inherited Sylvester, Terence Dials, J.J. Sullinger and Je’Kel Foster in July 2004, a month after the coach who recruited them to Ohio State, Jim O’Brien, was abruptly fired.
"I think back to their innocence when I first met them," Matta said. "The thing that will always stick out to me was their commitment to the program.
When a (new) coach comes in, you’ve got two ways you can go: They can buy in or they can not buy in. These kids unequivocally bought into what we were trying to do."
The heart and soul
Foster, a junior-college transfer, had not attended his first class at Ohio State when O’Brien was fired.
"I was shocked," he said. "There were a couple of (other) schools I could have gone to. I thought about it and (decided to) meet the new coach and give (him) a chance before I made any decisions. I’m glad I stuck here."
The feeling is mutual.
"What Je’Kel has meant to this program in the time we’ve been here, I don’t know if I can ever put a price on that," Matta said.
Foster set the bar for how hard and tough his teammates should aspire to play.
"I can honestly say, without a doubt, that Je’Kel Foster’s the toughest player I’ve ever played with," Sylvester said. "He plays harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. It seems like he doesn’t get tired, and when he does, he finds a way to not let it affect him. He keeps playing at 100 percent, throws his body all over the floor, just makes plays that normal players don’t make. It really lifts the team."
The picture worth a thousand words for Matta came after Foster returned to the floor against Illinois after being treated for a bloody nose.
"I looked out there and his shirt was half-untucked, his shorts were down, he’s got blood on his jersey, he’s got cotton hanging out of his nose and he’s looking (as if) saying, ‘What’s coming at me next?’ " Matta said. "That to me is who he is."
Foster was the Big Ten’s best three-point shooter until tailing off in recent weeks. He doesn’t care about that.
"W’s and L’s are what it boils down to," he said.
‘ Tinkerbell ’ vanishes
Terence Dials earned that nickname — after the winged pixie from the Peter Pan fairy tale — during preseason practice in 2004. Whenever the 6-foot-9, 250-pound center played softly, assistant coach Dan Peters addressed him as such.
"I haven’t used it once this year," Peters said last week. "That’s a great compliment to him. He’s been a man."
Dials is an amiable, usually gentle giant. "If I had a sister, I’d want her to marry him," Sullinger said.
But that demeanor at times in his career was Dials’ worst enemy. He "drifted" in and out of games, Matta said. Until this season, Dials was not conditioned well enough to go for 40 minutes at the level Matta wants. He also played undisciplined at times and, as a result, found foul trouble more often than his team could afford.
Those shortcomings disappeared in the past month. With the Big Ten title up for grabs, Dials carried the Buckeyes on his back with five doubledoubles in one stretch. He is a lock to be voted first-team All-Big Ten on Tuesday and could be named player of the year.
Dials showed promise as a freshman surrounded by experienced guards who led the Buckeyes to a share of the Big Ten title. He redshirted his second year because of a back injury. Then came a losing season in 2004, O’Brien’s firing, an NCAA investigation and Ohio State’s self-imposed banishment from the tournament last year.
"I think I’ve fought through a little bit of adversity and it made me stronger," Dials said. "When you come to college, you come as a little kid.
You want to be a man when you leave. I think I’ve accomplished that."
Best supporting actor
Perhaps no player on this team has matured as much as Sullinger, who returned to play for his hometown team after a year at Arkansas. He loves being on stage and performing. Not until after last season did he realize his team needed his rebounding and defense more than his flair for the dramatic.
"James is one that I’ve really seen mature and grow and get an understanding of the overall scope of what it takes," Matta said.
Unfortunately, it took a backagainst-the-wall experience before that happened: Sullinger’s arrest for drunken driving in September 2004, two months after Matta became coach. He ultimately pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of reckless operation but paid for his crime with 15 days of five-mile runs at 5 a.m., personally supervised by Matta.
Sullinger was just thankful that Matta, confronted with the first major discipline problem of his tenure, gave him a second chance.
"He got me back focused and seeing what was important in my life," Sullinger said.
Sullinger repaid him by giving this team what it lacked: a complementary rebounder to Dials and, when needed, an undersized power forward strong enough to hold his own inside.
"What James has brought to the table is a relentless passion," Matta said. "He kind of has adapted to, ‘Whatever this team needs me to do on a given day, I’m going to do it.’ You love that about him."
The buzzer beater
Sylvester ensured his legacy at Ohio State a year ago when he made a three-point shot with 5.1 seconds left to upset No. 1-ranked and previously undefeated Illinois.
He made another one in December, with 5.5 seconds left, to beat LSU.
"Those were a couple of defining moments in my career," he said.
What Matta has appreciated more is the 6-7 Sylvester’s head for the game.
Sylvester said he relishes being used as a point forward, "where the offense kind of goes through me and I’m expected to make the decision passes." He can cause hands to slap foreheads with forays to the basket that result in turnovers or ill-advised shots, but overall the rewards outweigh the risk. His ranks fourth in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio, behind those of three point guards. Despite being limited by a back injury for the past month, he has 30 assists and 12 turnovers in his past seven games. Ohio State is 6-1 in that span.
"Matt knows what it takes to win. I really appreciate that about him," Matta said. "He’s got the personality of a 40-yearold man and a back to match. So you can have conversations with Matt about things and you don’t have to sugar-coat anything, you just tell him here’s what we need and he has a great perception of what it is."
Sylvester won a state championship in Value City Arena as a sophomore at Cincinnati Moeller. Seven years later, he could cut down the nets again in his final game there.
"It’s a great way to go out," he said. "I don’t think you could script it any better."
