I am a buckeye fan and live in Cincinnati, following basketball down here for the last 7 years. So I am seeing both sides of this. Here is my somewhat unbiased opinion on the whole matter.
OSU fans in Columbus love Thad, think nothing is wrong with how he handled everything because he is now their guy. They are also very biased.
Xavier fans in Cincinnati loved Thad, think he lied to them and are pissed. They think he handled it poorly and think he is the antichrist right now. They are very biased.
To put a few more words around this, when the OSU job came open, Xavier fans were petrified. Thad was the hot young coach who took them to the elite eight, the guy who really put X on the map. He was a natural for the job. When he came out and said he was not a candidate, the entire city breathed a big sigh of relief. Then, in the span of about 1.5 days to them, he is suddenly out of nowhere a candidate again, then the top candidate, then he has accepted the job. To Cincinnati, this is like a punch in the gut. Like a girlfriend scorned, they look around for some way to lash out and pick up on the obvious "lie" and run with it. It plays HUGE in Cincinnati, all every talk show can talk about, and so the national media grabs it and jumps in. Stand up for their bretheren, show a huge school in a bad light which is sure to rile up their immense fan base and make the little guy (Xavier) look like the underdog and the good guy. Great tabloid journalism.
I can completely understand both sides. Matta made a mistake in how he worded his original denial. But from everything I have read about this whole thing, he honestly had the university's best interests at heart when he said it and he kept his boss fully apprised of the entire situation the whole way. In fact, all I have heard from anyone who knows Thad is that the university has no problem with how he handled everything and that we have gotten a fabulous coach, great on the X & Os, with high integrity, a solid recruiter (just got the best class in Xaviers history), and with good morals. He is also a guy who is raw in the PR area and needs to get with Steve Snapp ASAP. I think this is a fabulous hire for OSU no matter how he ultimately does. He is the right guy at the right time. I feel sorry for Xavier, but they are a mid major and this is the nature of the beast. I have no doubt Matta will become as indespensible as Izzo at MSU. He is that good. Just give him time.
One thing this should do is open up Cincinnati to us even more, once they get over this. He had a good following here and my guess is that he will be a frequent talk radio guest down here because his college roommate (I think, good friend at least), Lance McCallister is a drive time talk show host on the local sports radio station.