Thad is doing work right now. Many, many people across Buckeye Nation were up in arms over the performance of this past year's team, and some of the supposed "under-development" of guys in the program. I'd say Thad has answered the bell (as much as he can without being able to show if off yet on the court).
These next three classes (2014/2015/2016) overall could be one of the most well-rounded OSU rosters we've ever seen.
It really grinds my gears when OSU "fans" start arguing how Matta doesn't "develop" players. I'm not saying you're to blame, but you brought it up. I even saw a post on the Scout board within the past few days where a rival fan said David West didn't play for Matta at Xavier, thus he had nothing to do with coaching him, and nobody seemed to care that he was completely wrong, as nobody responded to that BS from what I could see.
Matta I think does a terrific job with the talent that he gets. Sometimes guys like Byron Mullens come in one year and don't really unpack their bags, even get caught on camera ignoring the coach and just walking right past him when he's clearly trying to talk to him during a game - you can't fault the coach much for guys like that. But truth be told the players that Matta has gotten lately are not especially talented. He has not had very athletic big men lately, either at the 4 or the 5. And yet fans expect him to turn guys who are unheralded into pros, and discount any top recruit he gets that goes to the NBA as just good recruiting.
And I doubt that any of the guys that he is getting or could possibly get in this 2015 class are guys that have a high chance of making the NBA, or that it is even logical to expect any of them to be on an NBA trajectory. Yet if they don't make the pros then somehow he hasn't done his job? Most OSU players don't make the NBA, it's been that way on every OSU team in every year but now expectations there are increased somehow. Turning guys into very good college players when they didn't start that way, that IS development although a lot of fans seem to ignore that. Deshaun Thomas got a ton better from his Freshman to Junior year. LaQuinton Ross likewise. Lenzelle Smith, there were generally low expectations of him coming out of high school, he was buried at the end of the bench his frosh season, but he ends up being a 1,000 point scorer. Evan Turner improved by leaps and bounds. Guys like Jon Diebler, David Lighty, and Jamar Butler clearly improved from Year 1 to Year 4 (or 5). Even Kyle Madsen and Matt Terwilliger got noticeably better.
I think there are a lot of posters out there that don't pay that much attention and want to look smart, and so they say one or more of these three things 1) the coach needs to play the bench more, 2) the coach is a good recruiter but not a talent developer, or 3) the coach doesn't make in-game adjustments. Honestly it's probably a waste of time to even bother trying to argue with these people because they are going to keep making the same dumb arguments every year and no amount of success on the court could possibly prove them wrong.
