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OSU Men's Basketball Recruiting/Projections/General Discussions

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MaxBuck said:
Holtmann and staff seem able to connect with some pretty high-level guys in a way few other B1G coaches can. We have a tremendous league, and a terrific coach leading the Buckeyes, so times are good!
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I;ve mentioned this before, but with the osu brand, there is no reason we can't (over time) approach blue blood status. It takes one really good coach. Matta was moving us there, then developed health issues and made a couple of hires that didn't work out so well. I won't put that kind of pressure on a coach to say its the expectation, but it should be the goal. Holtmann is off to a great start.
 
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wigmon said:
I;ve mentioned this before, but with the osu brand, there is no reason we can't (over time) approach blue blood status.
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"approach" is the key word there. if ho1tmann has an izzo-like career, which is asking a lot, then osu would probably fit in the second tier. right now, i'd put osu somewhere near the top of the third tier. we're still a rung below msu, louisville, and cuse. i think a lot of status goes beyond championships, final fours, and whatnot. a lot of it has to do with internal program interest, which has always waned at osu. maybe with enough consistent success, the fanbase interest will get there. i' won't be optimistic about that, though, until the culture changes at the schott beyond mere attendance numbers.

as far as ho1tmann goes, my expectation is that we'll have a good enough season for his contract to be extended at least a few seasons and about $3.8m per in total pay. if osu finishes ranked in the top 16 with a top 4 conference finish and/or a respectable tournament showing, then the administration should do the right thing, especially since his recruiting forecasts continuity and since the program is shining off the court.
 
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Have ucla and indiana dropped out of blue blood status? right now I'd say it only includes uk, ku, unc and duke. obviously there is no hard set criteria for what makes one a blue blood or the tier levels, but I would say matta got us to the top of tier 2 in about 6 years. In 2011, we were above msu (due to trending and b1g titles), probably syracuse and approaching louisville. Then obviously things went south and I agree we aren't in the second tier at the moment, but trending up.

I don't think the schott is a deterrent per say. I remember being at games in 2007 and 2010 when the place was rockin. yes, its not the greatest venue, when the opponent is meh and the team is average, but I think that somewhat describes unc as well. The dean dome isn't the greatest basketball venue (had many similar criticism to the schott in terms of layout and seat licenses) and I've seen that place be pretty dull, especially in the early 2000's. Winning changes everything in regards to fan support and atmosphere.

I am trying to compare us to a school like villanova. Before the last 4-5 years, they were a solid basketball school with a good tradition and a national title to their name. They are now near the top of tier 2. It took wright some time to build them up, but they are there now. I think the thing that separates the blue bloods is coaching dependency. Those 4 previously mentioned will have strong interest in their teams no matter the coach and performance (for a time). Indiana and ucla were there, but some bad coaching decisions for the past couple of decades may have dropped their programs out. IU still has the fan following so even though they have been struggling, I think they could get it back quickly, but I think ucla has lost it.

I don't know that we'd ever have the fan support for this sport to move us into that top tier, but there is no doubt there are plenty of fans across the country to win over. I think if Matta could have continued for another 5-10 years on what he built the first 5 that we would have been in that conversation. The question is, can any coach sustain that level of success here. I think Holtmann is finding out that you can certainly recruit better here than you can at a good big east school and doors are opened just because of the brand. I think a good successful coach can bring in top notch talent here consistently. It remains to be seen whether success will bring the fans back.
 
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if we had any visiting fans from uk, duke, unc, and ku, i'm sure they'd get a chuckle out of a buckeye discussion about possible blue blood status in the future when the last osu team to win more than one tournament game was seven seasons ago.
 
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OSU_Buckguy said:
if we had any visiting fans from uk, duke, unc, and ku, i'm sure they'd get a chuckle out of a buckeye discussion about possible blue blood status in the future when the last osu team to win more than one tournament game was seven seasons ago.
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Well Nike and adidas aren't paying hoops stars to go to OSU anywhere near the level they are those other programs, so we're not really comparing apples to apples.
 
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OSU_Buckguy said:
so we haven't won more than one tournament game the last six seasons because nike isn't "helping" us enough?
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I would love to hear an honest and detailed report from Thad Matta on this topic. I think clearly in this era playing by the rules hurts your chances of being at the top of college basketball. You can still be very good without widespread cheating, but you are likely at a routine disadvantage from a top-end talent standpoint. Being at the very top of the sport, without having semi-pros, is mostly not sustainable long-term.
 
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OSU_Buckguy said:
if we had any visiting fans from uk, duke, unc, and ku, i'm sure they'd get a chuckle out of a buckeye discussion about possible blue blood status in the future when the last osu team to win more than one tournament game was seven seasons ago.
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I think you missed the part about it being "possible" at a school with ohio states brand "over time". people would have laughed at duke being included in the blue blood talk prior to '90s or even thinking it possible.
 
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The sour taste of Thad's last two seasons have made it far too easy for many fans to take for granted what Thad accomplished for the great majority of his time here.

I understand the idea that Thad didn't QUITE get over the hump of elevating the OSU program to the heights we hope for but, damn, people, we're also not talking about some brief stretch of decent success or something. We're talking about a decade-long period from '05-'06 to '14-'15 where we only missed the Dance once (but won the NIT that year), never finished below the top half of the conference, had 5 regular season B1G championships, two Final 4s with a NC appearance from one of those, an Elite Eight, had the longest S16 streak in the nation after 2012-2013, and so on. Even '13-14 and '14-15 were some decent seasons that just happened to have some very limiting struggles due to some tough breaks with close-but-no-cigar recruiting races (and there were definitely some situations towards the end there where players were just getting bought away to different programs like UK, UCLA, and Arizona), players not developing enough on offense, and guys leaving early but not for the NBA like Thomas and Ross.

But, I mean, that decade as a whole is pretty close to the optimal level of what you can hope for in the Era of Parity at a place that is known more as a football school. I'm not dismissing what people are saying about resources and the brand and all that, and I'm not saying we should never hope to reach Thad's heights again, I'm just saying that that was a great ERA for OSU basketball and I can't think of a higher but still realistic compliment to Holtmann than I think he can get us very close to that level again all while dealing with a prospectively tougher conference.
 
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DZ83CK said:
I would love to hear an honest and detailed report from Thad Matta on this topic. I think clearly in this era playing by the rules hurts your chances of being at the top of college basketball. You can still be very good without widespread cheating, but you are likely at a routine disadvantage from a top-end talent standpoint. Being at the very top of the sport, without having semi-pros, is mostly not sustainable long-term.
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pretty sure matta would say that whatever happens at other schools wouldn't be the reason for not making it past the first weekend since 7 years ago. you're talking about what has kept osu from sprinting. i'm pointing out that recently osu has only managed to trot. fortunately, we're picking up the pace.

heck, the class that more or less did matta in was the class that ranked #5 nationally. matta bested some pretty solid competition for lyle, giddens, and grandstaff, as well as harris and mitchell. sure, we lost kennard to duke and he went on to do great things, but we also lost bragg to kansas who has gone on to do pretty much nothing. osu didn't fall off the map because we didn't get the #1 class instead of the #5 class. we didn't fall off the map because of the heralded players we didn't sign but instead because of the heralded players we did sign. osu's primary hindrance was not external. it was internal.
 
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