Senior realizes clock is ticking
Play has picked up after talk with Matta
Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:24 AM
By Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Matt Terwilliger
Twelve days ago, coming off consecutive losses and facing a tough game at Tennessee, coach Thad Matta had a conversation with the three seniors on the Ohio State men's basketball team.
Matta talked to them about sand in the hourglass, and how theirs was almost gone.
Othello Hunter responded that day with the best game of his short career: 17 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots in a five-point loss.
Perhaps none of the three, though, has taken Matta's message to heart more than Matt Terwilliger, whose play off the bench the past two games was a factor in second-half runs that carried the Buckeyes to wins over Minnesota and Penn State.
"That's been something I've been thinking about the whole year," Terwilliger said before a game Tuesday at Penn State. "When we go up against most of these teams, you know, that's the last time I'm ever going to play them. That's the taste I'm going to have to live with -- you know, the last time I played at Purdue, I lost. So I'm doing everything I can so that I leave with a good taste against every team, because I know this is the last go-round."
Terwilliger and senior point guard Jamar Butler have been on teams that have won 96 games in four years at Ohio State. But whereas Butler has been a starter since midway through his freshman year, the 6-foot-9 Terwilliger has come off the bench in every one of the 102 games in which he has played. He backed up Terence Dials his first two years, Greg Oden last year and now Kosta Koufos and Hunter.
But he said before this season that he is past the point in his career where starting matters to him.
"I don't want to say I've grown completely out of personal goals, but I put team goals ahead of them, and whatever I need to do to help this team win is what I'll do," Terwilliger said.
"My sophomore year, when Terence got tired, I'd come in and do what needed to be done. That's when I kind of realized that if everyone sacrifices something, everyone wins."
