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Thad Matta (OSU's All Time Winningest Coach & 3x B1G COY, Butler HC)

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billmac91;2315805; said:
Thad has routinely been criticized in some circles for his game management and X's and O's.

I think he's really done an amazing job through the back half of this year. From giving DeShaun Thomas, a generous 6'8 tweener at SF/PF, minutes at center in multiple competitive games this year to exploit match-ups against non-threatening bigs, to letting Craft and Shannon Scott wreck havoc for extended minutes as a undersized back-court duo, he has pushed all of the right buttons lately.

He seems to play the hot-hand a bit more, has found a rotation the players buy, and has really turned a very average team in early February, to a legit contender in March.

It's like watching a completely different squad from earlier this year and Thad should get a ton of credit for that.
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I'm gonna go ahead and toot my own horn a bit here. I posted this yesterday after the MSU win, and it's a line-up he had only used twice, but extremely efficiently, until today.

That line-up won us the game today. Wisky had no answer for Q when Thomas slid to center, which is exactly what Thad wanted. He's terrific at creating mis-matches and hiding our defensive flaws when he goes to that line-up.
 
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This guy is only 45. If his back stays healthy he could have 15+ years left here. He could be Boehiem or Coach K for our program. If he gets a national title in the near future then people really need to look out, recruiting will take off.
 
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OhioState001;2316509; said:
This guy is only 45. If his back stays healthy he could have 15+ years left here. He could be Boehiem or Coach K for our program. If he gets a national title in the near future then people really need to look out, recruiting will take off.
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Wishful thinking considering his other issues, but man do I hope you are right. Love Coach Matta.
 
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If I would have told you back in the summer of '04 that tOSU would hire a coach that would average 27.5 wins per season, make two final fours, win 5 conference regular season and and 4 conference tournament titles all in under a decade...what would you have thought?
 
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NFBuck;2316527; said:
If I would have told you back in the summer of '04 that tOSU would hire a coach that would average 27.5 wins per season, make two final fours, win 5 conference regular season and and 4 conference tournament titles all in under a decade...what would you have thought?
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BUCK3YE5;2316239; said:
Thad has drastically improved as a Coach this season. Very nice to see.
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I don't know about that - he's been a great coach for the past several years, but he's been able to rely on having great starters for many of those teams, though the bench on many of them was weak.

The thing about this 2013 team that differs from most of the past teams that Matta has had is he has a solid 8-man playing group that each of them bring something a little different to the table and can contribute in a significant way. Matta did a good job putting this team together and coaching them up as the year has gone on. Even with DT shooting fairly mediocre compared to what he had shot in some key games earlier in the year, they still have been able to win 8 in a row because of the depth that helps OSU match up, and guys getting more confident in their shot late in the season. Matta has a lot more versatility to mix and match with this group than he has had with past teams. Other than the 2007 team, this team has the best bench of any team Matta has had at OSU.
 
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OhioState001 said:
What other issues? I know earlier this year he said that this is the best he has felt in a long time.
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I don't know if you know anyone that has had back problems but Thad has a pretty big problem with his back and even after surgery usually back problems are not totally alleviated. You take stress off of one area and it puts stress on another area.

Also, I would not have expected a different answer from Coach. He is feeling "much better" but that is a very relative term especially when you have put up with a problem for such a long time.
 
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LitlBuck;2316678; said:
I don't know if you know anyone that has had back problems but Thad has a pretty big problem with his back and even after surgery usually back problems are not totally alleviated. You take stress off of one area and it puts stress on another area.

Also, I would not have expected a different answer from Coach. He is feeling "much better" but that is a very relative term especially when you have put up with a problem for such a long time.
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Also, not sure if it is his whole leg or part of it, but I know the nerve in his leg was damaged during his back surgery, and he has no feeling in his foot. You will notice he walks with a limp.
 
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The main reason Ohio State deserves applause for its play under coach Thad Matta — the Buckeyes have been seeded No. 1 or No. 2 in six of their past seven NCAA Tournament appearances — has more to do with football than basketball.

Powerhouse football schools traditionally don’t excel in basketball, and especially not at the highest level of the NCAA Tournament. The reasons are multiple, but essentially the best high-school players want to attend basketball schools, not football schools that happen to play basketball. Similarly, the best college basketball coaches want to work where their sport is king.

Credit Matta for negating those obvious disadvantages by recruiting “basketball school” talent that nearly matches what North Carolina, Duke and Kentucky bring in. Of course, just coming close usually is not good enough to topple those hoops titans, but at least Ohio State — with Florida a close second — competes with those powers better than any football school in the nation.

Matta also goes against the grain by saying he is comfortable in the No. 2 chair behind the No. 1 throne on which the Buckeyes’ football coach sits. Can you see John Calipari at Kentucky, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke or Bill Self at Kansas welcoming the idea of living in the shadow of a football program?
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http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/con...-takes-osu-where-few-football-schools-go.html
 
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COLUMBUS — There's only one goal remaining for Thad Matta: win the NCAA tournament.

The Ohio State basketball coach has accomplished everything else. The Matta Metric is now in play.

A team that was overrated preseason at No. 4, may be underrated today as a No. 2 seed and a trendy pick to reach the Final Four of this year's NCAA Tournament.

The journey begins Friday in Dayton, and could wind through a weak West Regional in Los Angeles next week. If all goes well, and the white-hot Buckeyes have won eight straight in the nation's best conference, a trip to Atlanta is a realistic scenario.

Ohio State won't see a team better than its weekend victims until or unless the Buckeyes reach the Final Four.

Contrary to what a new generation of fans may think, this is familiar territory for a historic program. Fred Taylor dominated just like this in the 1960s, with a similar run of talent. But replicating his achievements was too much for Eldon Miller, Gary Williams, Randy Ayers or Jim O'Brien.

Matta has completely exorcised those memories of mediocrity that dominated the program in the 1970s and 1980s. When Jim Jackson and Co. won a piece of the Big Ten championship in 1991, it ended a 20-year title drought.

Today's OSU fans are a spoiled lot in comparison. The Big Ten Tournament could easily be renamed the Matta Invitational. Here's the avalanche of numbers:

On Sunday, Matta's men won the conference tourney for the fourth time in eight years, and third time in the past four seasons. Four titles is more than any other league member.

The Buckeyes have also reached the Big Ten Tournament championship game five times in a row, and in seven of the past eight years. OSU has won 18 of its last 22 conference tourney games and Matta has a .792 winning percentage in the event. His 19 wins at the tournament are tied with Michigan State's Tom Izzo, who has coached in seven more tourneys than his Ohio State counterpart.

Matta is weaving a web of wow in the regular season, too. OSU has collected at least a piece of five conference titles since 2005, three of them outright championships, and came within a Michigan tip-in at the buzzer against Indiana of sharing it again this season.

Ohio State is 247-72 under Matta's charge, with a sterling 129-50 conference record. His teams have won at least 25 games in six of his nine seasons here and he is 50-12 in March, when the opponents are better, the stakes are higher, and the lights are brightest.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...o-2-seed-buckeyes-into-ncaa-stalwart/2000171/

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(Photo: David Banks, USA TODAY Sports)
 
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