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- Thread starter Golferdow01
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jimotis4heisman
Banned
im no engineer, but id say 21"2'...Golferdow01 said:7'1" and 7'1" and 7'0"
How tall is that!
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Captain Hindsight
The Hero of the Modern Age
Wow. That was a great article!
Matta has certainly been a great addition to the Buckeye family.
Matta has certainly been a great addition to the Buckeye family.
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Golferdow01
East-Coast Living
Since you never use caps jo, I'll assume your SHIFT key doesn't function either. That's an exclamation, not a question
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OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
What Coach Matta has been able to accomplish on the court and off is just amazing to this point. In just 3 years he has completely turned around the program and the future looks very bright with 10 top 100 players coming to tOSU in the 06,07,08 classes. Thats amazing.
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OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
Scout.com$ (Steve Helwagen)
7/8/06
Great read on Matta arriving at the NIKE camp and Ron Lewis being an advisor at the camp. Topics range from Oden's wrist, Butler taking a leadership role and the incoming freshmen class.
7/8/06
Great read on Matta arriving at the NIKE camp and Ron Lewis being an advisor at the camp. Topics range from Oden's wrist, Butler taking a leadership role and the incoming freshmen class.
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el mastiff
All-American
Dispatch Article on Matta's Recruiting
The following article does a nice job of discussing how Matta recruits. Has anyone figured out how many (what percentage) of Matta's recruits are top 100 recruits? By the way, there was a Recruiting Trail section, showing all of his recruits, that I could not cut and paste here.
Dispatch
7/9/06
The following article does a nice job of discussing how Matta recruits. Has anyone figured out how many (what percentage) of Matta's recruits are top 100 recruits? By the way, there was a Recruiting Trail section, showing all of his recruits, that I could not cut and paste here.
Dispatch
7/9/06
OSU stacks blue chips
Bumper crop of talent recruited by Matta has raised men’s basketball program’s profile
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
INDIANAPOLIS — Daequan Cook was the first blue chip to fall. That started the landslide that, ultimately, also sent David Lighty, Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. tumbling into the arms of Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad Matta.
In September, all four showed up for the Buckeyes’ prime-time football game against Texas in Ohio Stadium. So did the next stack of Matta’s chips, which included Jon Diebler, Kosta Koufos and Dallas Lauderdale.
Diebler was so revved up that he committed two weeks later. Koufos waited until May, but he, too, said his decision turned that night. Two weeks after Koufos came aboard, Lauderdale followed.
In the span of 20 months — beginning with 2008 center B.J. Mullens of Canal Winchester committing in November 2004 — Matta has induced 10 highly rated highschool recruits to cast their lot with him. And he’s not done. He and assistants John Groce, Alan Major and Dan Peters are on the road most of this month trying to add two or three more to the class of ’08.
"I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a college team recruit three classes back-to-back-toback before any one of the three has stepped on the court," said Chris Johnson, the Ohio editor of the hoopscooponline-.com recruiting service. "To me, that’s kind of unprecedented."
The first class — Cook, Lighty, Oden and Conley — will be freshmen this season.
Matta’s knack for stacking stocked classes continues to turn heads because of where he’s doing it. Ohio State never has been one of the sport’s "destination" programs, a la Duke, North Carolina, Kansas or Kentucky. It didn’t even measure up to Michigan State in its own conference.
That began to change two years ago yesterday. The day after Matta agreed to become Ohio State coach, he and Groce were conspicuous at a New Jersey camp where Cook, Conley and Oden were playing. Matta’s introductory news conference at Ohio State waited until the day after that.
"When you hire a guy, you have a window of recruiting momentum that sets the tempo for the program," said Dave Telep, national recruiting editor for scouthoops.com. "Thad Matta has never taken his foot off that pedal.
They’ve just pushed it and pushed it and pushed it."
To the point that some — rival coaches, other recruits — question how all the parts are going to find enough playing time in a 40-minute game.
"We hear people tease us all the time at these camps: ‘You guys have too many players. There aren’t going to be enough balls,’ " Diebler, of Upper Sandusky, said last week at the Nike All-American Camp in Indianapolis.
"That’s not our attitude coming in. Our attitude is we’re going to be playing against the best every day (in practice), and it’s only going to make us better."
Matta said finding players who embrace that culture has been part of his evaluation process.
"It wasn’t that difficult, to be honest with you," he said. "It’s kind of becoming the trend where, if you take the NBA, guys are taking pay cuts to try to win a championship or win a division. If you look at (North) Carolina a couple years ago, or Illinois a couple of years ago, who was the guy on those teams? No one. But you had six guys go on and play in the NBA.
"We want guys who want to compete, who want to be great players and who want to practice against them every day."
Diebler, who will come in a year behind fellow wing guards Cook and Lighty, said his top priority in choosing a program was its ability to win a national championship. Another 2007 wing, Evan Turner of Chicago, who committed last week, said the amount of competition at his position was not a concern. One of Ohio’s top uncommitted prospects in 2008, forward Delvon Roe of Lakewood St. Edward, said the same.
"If you want to be a winner and play for a winning program, the best place to go is where the players are good," Roe said. "If you go to a school that’s not as good as Ohio State’s going to be, you start questioning why you went there."
Another aspect of the process is creating good chemistry. Cook played on the same AAU team with Oden and Conley, who were high-school teammates, and lobbied both to join him at Ohio State. Diebler, Koufos and Lauderdale, who are all from Ohio, became friends with Turner in June at a camp in Richmond, Va., and it "might have tipped" Turner toward Ohio State, said his high-school coach, Gene Pingatore of Westchester (Ill.) St. Joseph.
Koufos, of Canton GlenOak, and Roe play on the same AAU team and are roommates on trips. The situation is the same with Mullens and another 2008 prospect, forward Yancy Gates of Cincinnati Hughes.
"You’ve got to want to play with people," Diebler said. "If you enjoy the people that are going to a college, it’s going to make you very interested."
A third part of the equation is to make recruits aware of the attrition factor: that the players already at their positions might not stay for four years. Oden won’t, and "everybody and his mother knows Daequan Cook is a short-term guy," Telep said. That message probably already has reached Toledo Libbey guard William Buford, a topshelf wing in the class of 2008 whose smooth style reminds some of Cook’s.
"What Matta has to do now is prioritize which ones he really wants and make sure they’re fully aware of where they expect attrition," Telep said. "Beyond arousing interest in your program, now you’re managing pieces. It can be a high-wire act. But that’s part of the natural growth of a high-level basketball program."
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OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
Here is the rest of the article.....
Sunday, July 09, 2006
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sandgk
Watson, Crick & A Twist
Discounting JC recruit Othello Hunter all 4 remaining members of the 2006 class are Top 100 rated. Minimum rating 80%, and as Othello merits a 4* rating you can argue a 100% hit rate for Magic Matta with the '06 class.
From 2007 Kosta is top 100, as is Dallas Lauderdale, Jon Dibler and Evan Turner. Which is a 100% hit rate (heady stuff as a 2-year run isn't it
).Of the 2 commits already on board for 2008, Offutt and Mullens, neither have a listing in an "official" 2008 top rankings though their placement in the Scout 2008 list of all prospects indicates sure-fire Top 100 status. But, by now, isn't that what you would expect?
For my money Matta's batting a thousand for the Buckeyes - may it long be that way.
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