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

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Matta, who signed a new contract in January that is paying him more than $3 million this season, missed out on a $20,000 performance bonus when the Buckeyes fell one game short of winning a share of another Big Ten championship in the regular season. He more than made up for it last week, earning $40,000 for winning the conference tournament and another $40,000 for receiving a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The tournament title also extended his contract another year, through the 2019-20 season.
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“I don’t know if I’ve ever been prouder of a basketball team. You look at this tournament, you look at this league, and we’ve gone 21 straight games. To be standing atop of it today … incredible.” — Matta, perhaps tweaking regular-season champion Indiana and coach Tom Crean after Ohio State finished 16-5 and the Hoosiers 15-5 against Big Ten opponents.
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:)
http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/con...s-new-buckeyes-make-big-ten-final-win-it.html
 
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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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Not to mention dominate the shit out of Michigan...
 
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Matta played at Southern Illinois before transferring to Butler. It's there that he had his Dayton moment. He told the story Thursday.

“When I was a player, I may have had my greatest game ever in this building,” Matta said. “I say that jokingly, but I hit a last-second shot. I think I only had 2 points for the game, but we won the game.

“I can take you through this. We're down 7 with like 1:56 to go. I think I was a sophomore then. Coach calls a timeout and says we need some threes. So I come down and hit a three. We're down four. Stop them, come back down, hit another three. We're down oen. We get a turnover with 20 seconds to go.

“Coach calls a timeout: 'Here's what we're going to do. We're going to run this play and get the ball to Tucker. If we can't get it to Tucker, get it to Fowlkes. If we can't get it to Fowlkes, get it to Littrell. If we can't get it to Littrell, get it to Karaffa.'

“And the horn goes off. 'Wait a second, I'm in this game.' I came down the court at the horn and threw it up. And I told you I scored about 8 points the entire game. That's what type of player I was. That was the highlight of my playing at Butler University.

“Please don't make a big deal out of that. That's my one shining moment in college basketball. We can talk about my high school career. I was a better high school player.”
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more
http://www.cleveland.com/marchmadne...tournament_2013_live_upda.html#incart_m-rpt-1
 
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Here comes Arizona: Sorry Gonzaga and Oregon and UCLA and New Mexico and UNLV. Great seasons. But Matta had a clear choice when it came to the best basketball team in that part of the country this season.

“The best team on the West Coast is who we play next. I've seen Arizona and they are loaded,” Matta said. “They are extremely talented.”

Matta might be saying that because Ohio State plays the Wildcats, who beat Harvard, 74-51, on Saturday. He might be saying that because Arizona coach Sean Miller is a good friend and his former assistant at Xavier. He might be saying that because it could be true.

Arizona started the season 14-0, with wins over Florida and Miami, to reach No. 4 in the AP poll, before going 12-6 in Pac-12 play to finish tied for second in the conference.

The last time Matta faced Miller in the NCAA Tournament, it wasn't easy. The Buckeyes needed a last-second shot to force overtime and beat Miller's Xavier team in the second round in 2007 on the way to the Final Four. Now the Buckeyes needed a similar shot Sunday against the Cyclones to get another game against the same coach.

Matta said Miller sent him a “See you in L.A.” text before Sunday's game, but when they were talking on the phone Monday, after Selection Sunday, they didn't know what was possible.

“If we can just get to L.A., it'll be like a home game for us,'” Miller told Matta.

“I think we're in L.A., too” Matta said.

And they both got there.
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http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2013/03/ohio_state_laquinton_ross_ncaa.html
 
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Ohio State men's basketball: A March man
Coach Thad Matta has guided the Buckeyes to their fourth straight Sweet 16 appearance; his teams are still winning when it counts most
osu-mbk-matta-art-g0hm84th-1osubball0211-kr-14.jpg

KYLE ROBERTSON | DISPATCH
Thad Matta has the second-best late-season winning percentage since 2004-05, behind only Kentucky coach John Calipari.
By Todd Jones
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH TUESDAY MARCH 26, 2013

Before his Ohio State basketball program went up in scandalous flames, Jim O?Brien took the Buckeyes to the 1999 Final Four, their first in 31 years.
It was a grand moment, but one the former OSU coach viewed as more of an aberration when asked about it days after the Buckeyes returned to Columbus, having lost to Connecticut in a semifinal.

?Anybody that?s expecting Final Fours to be a yearly occurrence needs to start following Duke,? O?Brien said.

Now here are the Buckeyes under Thad Matta, O?Brien?s successor, just two wins shy of a second consecutive Final Four and third since 2007, when they lost in the championship game.

Ohio State (28-7), seeded second in the West Regional, has reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for a fourth straight season, something the Buckeyes had never done.

Behind Matta's 249-72 record in nine seasons at OSU lies a change in mindset at the top.

?Thad doesn?t hide behind the fact that he wants to win the national championship for Ohio State University,? assistant coach Jeff Boals said.

cont...
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http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2013/03/26/a-march-man.html
 
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Four consecutive Sweet Sixteens. I didn't even consciously realize it was that many in a row until everyone started saying it after the Iowa State game. For me that is about as good as it gets, to have that kind of sustained success--and in our "secondary" sport! National championships would be great, that's the goal of course, but I can live very happily with BCS bowls and multi-weekend NCAA runs. These are golden years, Buckeye fans!
 
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BayBuck;2320761; said:
Four consecutive Sweet Sixteens. I didn't even consciously realize it was that many in a row until everyone started saying it after the Iowa State game. For me that is about as good as it gets, to have that kind of sustained success--and in our "secondary" sport! National championships would be great, that's the goal of course, but I can live very happily with BCS bowls and multi-weekend NCAA runs. These are golden years, Buckeye fans!
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Yup, the past decade and counting has been beyond golden.
 
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BayBuck;2320761; said:
Four consecutive Sweet Sixteens. I didn't even consciously realize it was that many in a row until everyone started saying it after the Iowa State game. For me that is about as good as it gets, to have that kind of sustained success--and in our "secondary" sport! National championships would be great, that's the goal of course, but I can live very happily with BCS bowls and multi-weekend NCAA runs. These are golden years, Buckeye fans!
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It's fun going to the 2nd weekend of the tournament, isn't it?
 
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