Introduce a new fan to Buckeye Basketball

[BrutusLars]

Hey everybody,

I'm a high school senior from New Jersey and I will be studying at the Fisher School of Business next year! To this point in my life I have been a Notre Dame fan but with my enrollment being at OSU, my loyalty is going to change. I know next to nothing about the Buckeye program other than Thad Matta has done a great job elevating the team. In college I'm hoping I can get involved in the football/basketball program maybe working with the SID (sports information director). I would appreciate if anyone can share some info on the state of the program (personnel, offensive/defensive schemes, coach/AD relations, recruiting etc...). I'm looking forward to being in the student section next year and cheering on our Buckeyes!

Thanks again guys

 

[Crump's brother]

Start by never mentioning Notre Dame again.

 

[AuburnBuckeye]

Thad Matta, he's pretty good

 

[BrutusLars]

Start by never mentioning Notre Dame again.

Certainly wasn't planning on it. I'm 100% scarlet and gray now

 

[DZ83CK]

With Matta they have had a pretty stable flow of good talent so they are able to withstand having one early entry a year (losing one guy "early" each year almost seems like the baseline expectation nowadays) without much of a drop-off in team quality. They have more talented teams than ND every year lately, you could say talent-wise OSU typically rates somewhere in the back half of the top-10 in the country but this year is a bit less talented than the past few years though they have a more experienced team than most this year which helps them look perhaps better than that at this point in the season. Matta has been able to bring in some legit future NBA players from time to time which help elevate the team to above top-10 and into the top-5. But they always seem to have somebody to plug in when they lose a great player.

In contrast to ND, which likes to play a more old school lineup with 2 bigs, under Matta OSU has pretty much always been a team that has a big wing at the 4, with a 4-out, 1-in offense so the 4-man for OSU has to be able to shoot the 3. They have been a team that has been very good at taking care of the ball, emphasizes strong defense, and lately they have been very good at forcing turnovers. They typically have a bit slower pace than the average college team because most of the teams Matta has had aren't teeming with future NBA guys even though a lot of guys leave early. So they have had to have some patience on O and have had to play tough D to win at the rate they are - both of which slow down the pace of the game. Matta loves to play man, although he had a zone team for one year when they were especially young and inexperienced. Some people out there are holding on to the 2010 season which burned this idea that Matta only likes to play 5-6 guys into their minds, but in reality he is willing to play deeper into his bench when those guys can contribute consistently but OSU is now at a perennial top-10 level which makes it difficult for guys to be good enough to earn minutes.

Nothing really notable about coach-AD relations, but many OSU fans don't like the AD, and the AD did oversee a VERY irregularly balanced 2011 NCAA tourney bracket from a talent perspective which set up one very weak region talent-wise compared to the other 3 and of course OSU was in one of the strongest regions in spite of having the #1 overall seed.

Overall, Matta has this program very competitive year in and year out, now at a perennial top-10ish level, so students can go into any year thinking it will be a good year to get basketball season tickets. And unlike Bo Ryan (who seems to get a lot of credit based on being very consistently competitive), Matta has teams that are threats to go to the Elite 8 and beyond pretty often.

 

[MaxBuck]

Thad Matta has established himself as quite possibly the best coach in college hoop. Ohio State is the only team in the nation to have reached the Sweet 16 each of the past four seasons. And this is without the high-level NBA talent that other schools such as Kentucky, Syracuse and North Carolina have had (though Matta has recruited pretty well himself, he hasn't had the talent available to him that Calipari, Boeheim and Williams have brought to their schools). Team defense is consistently excellent, especially as it relates to forcing turnovers.