Bob Hunter commentary: Starting over another day at office for Matta
When coach Thad Matta was asked whether he would like to rebuild the Ohio State men's basketball program every year, he laughed. He started to answer, tripped over a word or two and then tried again.
"That's a great question," he said. "I ask myself that every day."
After wading through the whys, wherefores and what-ifs of the situation and acknowledging that losing three freshman to the NBA in one season makes his job much harder, he always comes up with the same answer.
Yes.
Greg Oden, Michael Conley and Daequan Cook are in the NBA, but the sweet scent of their journey still lingers in the air: an appearance in the NCAA Tournament final, Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles, 35 wins.
"The bottom line is this," Matta said. "In the national championship game, eight players were drafted from that game: five in the top nine of the NBA draft, and the No. 21 pick came from us. If you're going to (compete) … you better have some really, really good players."
Matta appears to have some really good players again; for now, the second "really" will be withheld until further review. His second consecutive mystery team gathered for media day yesterday wearing a bunch of question marks that could quickly turn into exclamation points.
One player, 7-foot freshman Kosta Koufos of Canton GlenOak, was good enough that he reportedly was offered $5 million for three years to play in Greece this season after dominating the under-18 European championships in August. The other freshmen -- 6-8 Dallas Lauderdale, 6-6 Evan Turner, 6-6 Jon Diebler and 6-5 Eric Wallace -- and sophomore transfers Kyle Madsen (6-9) and P.J. Hill (6-1) didn't have to choose between college and $5 million. But there's enough talent there to make things interesting, especially when they have three experienced seniors -- Jamar Butler, Matt Terwilliger and Othello Hunter -- and sophomore David Lighty to play with.
What no one knows at this point, including Matta, is how well and how quickly the players will blend to form a formidable team.
"There's some very talented freshmen," Terwilliger said. "They show it almost on a daily basis, the stuff that they do. They just have to keep their confidence and know that if they do what they can do within our offense, we're going to be all right."
Right or wrong, expectations are for the Buckeyes to be better than "all right." Student tickets sold out quickly, and some school officials have suggested that they will sell out most, if not all, of their home games.
That suggests that the fans are anticipating another top-10 team and possibly even another Final Four run. It's a crazy notion at this point, not because they aren't good but because Greg Oden might have been a once-in-a-generation player and the Thad Five might have been a once-in-a-generation recruiting class.
At this time last year, Matta showed his players a picture of the Georgia Dome, site of the Final Four, and told them they could get there if they worked hard enough.
He hasn't done that for this team and says he probably won't, not because he doesn't think they can get there but because the circumstances are so much different.
"The biggest reason I did that is that's where everybody expected us to be," Matta said. "And the hidden message was, we're not ready to get there yet. We've got a lot of work to do … "
Two years ago, the Buckeyes were picked near the bottom of the Big Ten standings. His message then was different.
"My message to our guys was you that can take what people think and throw it out the window," he said. "They're not going to score a point for us. They're not going to get a rebound for us. It's about the guys in this room and what we truly want to accomplish."
He didn't show that team a picture of the Final Four site, either.
"I'll be honest with you," Matta said. "I had a huge banner with us in eighth place in the Big Ten."
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