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Program in turmoil (maybe not)

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The Ohio State Basketball Program Remains Alive and Well Despite Fans' Beliefs

I hate to say I told you so (no I don't), but no one would listen when I insisted Thad Matta would right the ship for the Buckeyes.

MattaNITPodium.jpg


Let me start by saying I told you so.

Now, raise your hand if you thought the Ohio State men's basketball program was dead in the water. I hope most of you have your hands in the air and I hope you have a look of shame on your face.

For a good portion of the Buckeye basketball season I received countless e-mails and tweets telling me how this was the end of the road for Thad Matta – or that it should be. I was informed that the program, which had made the NCAA Tournament seven consecutive years before last season, had gone off the rails.

Then came the postseason.

Despite not having any expectations for most of the regular season, all of a sudden Ohio State was expected to win the NIT. The 3-seed Buckeyes needed to make a deep run or else Matta was out the door, or so many fans said.

Following the loss to No. 1 seed Florida, the floor fell out – or so I was told. Three members of the 2015 recruiting class – ranked the fifth-best in the nation by 247Sports – announced their intent to transfer.

LyleDisappointed.jpg

Point guard JaQuan Lyle is one of the bright spots for OSU moving forward

How could things get any worse for Matta’s team? Losing an assistant coach might do it. That’s exactly what happened when it was announced that Jeff Boals had taken the head coaching job at Stony Brook.

Now I was receiving text messages confirming the worst. The Buckeyes were dead in the water and it was time to blow the basketball program up and start over. No one would listen when I told them to calm down. Matta is a good coach who even in rough years manages to win 20 games – some programs would kill for that.

Now the good news is starting to roll in yet my inbox remains empty.

Yes, the Buckeyes lost Boals, their defensive coordinator so to speak, but they appear on the verge of bringing back former player and assistant Chris Jent, who also played 10 seasons in the NBA and has coached at both the professional and collegiate level. His biggest claim to fame may be as the shooting coach for LeBron James, and that guy is pretty good.
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Are the 2016-17 Buckeyes bound for the Final Four? Probably not, but only four programs in the country are. Has everything gone to hell for men's collegiate basketball at Ohio State? No. This team still has a very good coach and players that will continue to develop and should make for an interesting upcoming season if nothing else.

All I ask is the Buckeye fans take this as a learning experience. Not every year is going to be perfect, but things could be much worse. Oh, and Coach Matta knows what he’s doing.

Don’t make me say I told you so again.

Entire article: http://theozone.net/Ohio-State/Mens...ate-Basketball-Program-Remains-Alive-and-Well
 
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Change may be good, but it's not guaranteed to be. Nobody really knows for sure if the guys they have added will help them be a better team next season. To expect that fans who have been skeptical will lose their doubts because of what has happened the past couple of days is unrealistic.
 
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Could things be much worse? Yes, but that is beside the point. Coaches getting millions are expected to perform accordingly, and many are fired for continual mediocrity. We are all hoping the program will snap out of it soon. I think it is bad enough though that the last two years' performance will eventually get the coach fired at OSU if that mediocrity happens for several seasons.
 
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cdiddy70 said:
"Thinking Jent might be aiming toward being the Buckeye head coach in a couple years."

He isn't thinking clearly then.

His career has gone nowhere since he got canned with the Kings staff.
And barring a near miraculous turnaround we aren't going to be promoting an assistant from within.
We should be able to attract a HC who has a proven track record of being an NCAA HC.

Sidebar: My flyer would be David Blatt. I think he got shafted and is a potentially brilliant mind who was thrust into an untenable situation,
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You do know that Jent does have a bit of HC in the NBA with Orlando and has been an assistant at other places in the NBA. You really do not think that he cannot be a head coach at the college level. I find that to be ridiculous. In addition, his name recognition would probably bring recruits from all over.

Also, as much as I like Blatt I do not think that he would ever coach at the college level and I would be a little surprised if he ever coaches at the NBA level again even though I think he is a solid coach. I think King James has taking care of poor Coach Blatt.
 
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LitlBuck said:
You do know that Jent does have a bit of HC in the NBA with Orlando and has been an assistant at other places in the NBA. You really do not think that he cannot be a head coach at the college level. I find that to be ridiculous. In addition, his name recognition would probably bring recruits from all over.

Also, as much as I like Blatt I do not think that he would ever coach at the college level and I would be a little surprised if he ever coaches at the NBA level again even though I think he is a solid coach. I think King James has taking care of poor Coach Blatt.
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Not your best effort.
1) I didn't say Jent couldn't be a HC in college. I prefer his first attempt at being a HC not be at OSU. And we won't be hiring from within barring a miraculous turnaround. OJT should be left to the MAC and other conferences of their ilk.
2) His HC experience in the NBA was the result of his HC gettting fired and him having a cup of coffee as an interim coach. He was quickly replaced.
3) His HC exeperience in the D-League has hardly been the stuff of legends. His squad was awful this year.
4) He has little to no name recognition with today's 16-18 year olds. In fact i would say None. Bringing in from "recruits from all over" because of his name is preposterous. Unless he intends to bring in 40 year old white OSU fans that remember him diving on the floor 25+ years ago.
5) Blatt has a shot at the Knicks job. I think Thibs takes the Wolves job.
 
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DZ83CK said:
The guys that have committed in the spring (or later) right before coming to OSU?
Kyle Madsen
PJ Hill
Nikola Kecman
Zisis Sarikopoulos
Jeremie Simmons
Evan Ravenel
Amedeo Della Valle
Anthony Lee

Now CJ Jackson added to the list.
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precedence doesn't matter a whole lot with something like this. you have to take each player individually on their own merits. Simmons was a decent add until his nerve/eye issue derailed him and I think he's the best comparable for CJ Jackson, but CJ has more PG ability (and a better list of suitors). Lee is the only one of these guys that I was as remotely excited about as I am with CJ when he announced he was coming to OSU and to this day I'm still mystified he wasn't a bit better here, didn't think his performance level from Temple would just go out the window (that said, I actually think he was starting to come on and our team was starting to gel right before the Loving suspension and then Lee's groin injury).

outside of that, I agree, it's a sad list.
 
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cdiddy70 said:
Not your best effort.:lol:
1) I didn't say Jent couldn't be a HC in college. I prefer his first attempt at being a HC not be at OSU. And we won't be hiring from within barring a miraculous turnaround. OJT should be left to the MAC and other conferences of their ilk.
2) His HC experience in the NBA was the result of his HC gettting fired and him having a cup of coffee as an interim coach. He was quickly replaced.
3) His HC exeperience in the D-League has hardly been the stuff of legends. His squad was awful this year.
4) He has little to no name recognition with today's 16-18 year olds. In fact i would say None. Bringing in from "recruits from all over" because of his name is preposterous. Unless he intends to bring in 40 year old white OSU fans that remember him diving on the floor 25+ years ago.
5) Blatt has a shot at the Knicks job. I think Thibs takes the Wolves job.
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I will try and do better because you are so knowledgeable.
 
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DZ83CK said:
Change may be good, but it's not guaranteed to be. Nobody really knows for sure if the guys they have added will help them be a better team next season. To expect that fans who have been skeptical will lose their doubts because of what has happened the past couple of days is unrealistic.
Click to expand...

The fact of the matter is that no one on either side is in a position to say "I told you so." I'm fairly optimistic about next season and I like recent developments with staff and recruiting, but what the team actually does next season will be the real barometer of the program under Thad. It's an important season, no doubt. Get things headed in the right direction and you have something to build on for 2017-2018 and increase recruiting momentum. The alternative is not encouraging. I'm really rooting for things to swing forwards again because I think a rebuild under a new coach is most likely not going to be the instant improvement that some seem to be picturing it as. And there's even a decent chance that we'd end up in the vicious cycle of hiring a coach, giving him a few years, and then trying to find someone better because he isn't coming close enough to winning the B1G and making S16s, something that we at least KNOW Thad can do, and has done better than on several occasions.
 
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nomatta said:
The fact of the matter is that no one on either side is in a position to say "I told you so." I'm fairly optimistic about next season and I like recent developments with staff and recruiting, but what the team actually does next season will be the real barometer of the program under Thad. It's an important season, no doubt. Get things headed in the right direction and you have something to build on for 2017-2018 and increase recruiting momentum. The alternative is not encouraging. I'm really rooting for things to swing forwards again because I think a rebuild under a new coach is most likely not going to be the instant improvement that some seem to be picturing it as. And there's even a decent chance that we'd end up in the vicious cycle of hiring a coach, giving him a few years, and then trying to find someone better because he isn't coming close enough to winning the B1G and making S16s, something that we at least KNOW Thad can do, and has done better than on several occasions.
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Above (quoted) is the preeminent post in this thread. Learn It, Live it, Know it.
 
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nomatta said:
precedence doesn't matter a whole lot with something like this. you have to take each player individually on their own merits. Simmons was a decent add until his nerve/eye issue derailed him and I think he's the best comparable for CJ Jackson, but CJ has more PG ability (and a better list of suitors). Lee is the only one of these guys that I was as remotely excited about as I am with CJ when he announced he was coming to OSU and to this day I'm still mystified he wasn't a bit better here, didn't think his performance level from Temple would just go out the window (that said, I actually think he was starting to come on and our team was starting to gel right before the Loving suspension and then Lee's groin injury).

outside of that, I agree, it's a sad list.
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You're right, I am not saying Jackson is a bad add, what the others did really doesn't impact how he will perform on the court, of course. I'm just saying that Thad's track record overall in the case of spring additions has me tempering my enthusiasm for his addition.
 
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I believe it'll be good to change a couple of the assistants. Get some guys who can identify and bring in the type of players this program needs. Swinging for the fences and whiffing on a lot of 5-stars, then gathering a plethora of average players after missing out on the vast majority of Plan A guys, has knocked the program down a notch. Maybe some new assistants will be more adept at finding the competitors and talents that the program needs. Boals is already gone, replaced by Jent, that should be a good change. Dickerson leaving can't be that bad, he is the other longtime assistant that hasn't really been getting it done on the recruiting trail, IMO. A lot of average players brought in by those coaches.
 
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