[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

6/22/06

SUMMER LEAGUE

Matta puts Buckeyes on sideline

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH




The McDonald’s Summer League is offering a leaner menu in its 25 th year.

Ohio State men’s basketball players, who have been the star attractions of the Worthingtonbased league since it began, aren’t playing in it this summer by request of coach Thad Matta.

Matta said yesterday it is more important that the players, especially the four freshmen who began classes this week, "take care of business" in summer school than play two nights a week in the league, which began its monthlong schedule last Thursday.

"I’m more concerned about getting these guys off to a good start academically than I am anything else," Matta said. "Guys are (supposed to be) studying at the time they’re playing at the Worthington league."

By confining their summer games to the Schottenstein Center practice gym, the Buckeyes are getting a jump on playing as a team. NCAA rules prohibit more than two players from a college team playing on the same summer-league team, although incoming freshmen are exempt from that rule.

League director Alisha Colyer said she was blindsided by the move, learning of it two days before the start of the season.

"They never called to forewarn us. (It) was a little disappointing, to say the least," she said.

Colyer said attendance was down from past years for the first two nights.

Although NCAA rules prohibit the league from charging for admission, fewer fans will mean less revenue from concessions operated by the two host schools, Thomas Worthington and Worthington Kilbourne.

Meanwhile, Matta acknowledged it could be six months before 7-foot freshman Greg Oden of Indianapolis is ready to play for the Buckeyes after surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right wrist.

Oden suffered the injury Feb. 28 but finished his highschool season and played in two all-star games. Matta said Oden probably could have played this season without having surgery, "but I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize his future. He needed to have it."

bbaptist@dispatch.com