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

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DZ83CK;2313829; said:
Kidding aside, I think Nebraska's coach Miles did a TERRIFIC job his year. ... he will have them in the [strike]NCAA[/strike] CIT tourney within the next few years.
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FI

Baby steps, DZ, baby steps. BTW, you were right, they were the worst team in the league, and getting a single win, let alone several, is little short of a miracle. They suck harder than the [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Dyson-15804-01-DC28-Animal/dp/B00208JVEG"]Dyson DC28 Animal[/ame].
 
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Three years later, this is the hoops equivalent of Hoy Buckeye for me:

matta-hyped-o.gif
 
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MililaniBuckeye said:
To be fair, only three teams finished ahead of Wisconsin in the conference (Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan State). Izzo and Matta are expected to consistently produce the teams that they do...in fact, our season is sort of a "disappointment" when you look at where everyone had us a ranked pre-season (#3-#4), so Matta shouldn't even be a real candidate. Who other than Ryan should have won COY this year? Crean? Beilein?
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Just because the media thought that we were going to be one of the best teams in the country before this season began should not mean anything. I think that once it began the media should have taken a look at what Matta had to work with. One proven scorer and no real inside presence. Matta did one hell of a job this year coaching a very limited scoring team and finished one game away from a Big 10 co-championship. To say Ryan did a better job with what he had does not mean anything because they finished about where they were projected to finish in the preseason voting. I don't want to hear about their point guard going down before the season began because Jackson has filled in pretty well at that position.

Matta gets screwed because he has not that flamboyant and I wonder if the writers even thought about the fact that Thad went to a small lineup in a couple games that might have gotten away without that type of strategy.
 
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Per Bob Baptist twitter Matta says it is much easier for players parents if the Big Ten tournament was held in Indianapolis rather than Chicago. Really no reason given but maybe it's because it is more centrally located.
 
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LitlBuck;2314155; said:
Per Bob Baptist twitter Matta says it is much easier for players parents if the Big Ten tournament was held in Indianapolis rather than Chicago. Really no reason given but maybe it's because it is more centrally located.
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My guesses:

1. Chicago traffic is awful and the United Center is on 290, maybe the worse stretch of all
2. Hotels in Chicago are expensive as balls.
3. Indianapolis knows how to throw a big sporting event.
4. Tolls upon tolls upon tolls in Chicago.
5. You don't need to drive from the hotel to the arena in Indy.
 
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NastyNatiBuck;2314240; said:
My guesses:

1. Chicago traffic is awful and the United Center is on 290, maybe the worse stretch of all
2. Hotels in Chicago are expensive as balls.
3. Indianapolis knows how to throw a big sporting event.
4. Tolls upon tolls upon tolls in Chicago.
5. You don't need to drive from the hotel to the arena in Indy.
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This x1,000,000
 
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I hate the pick of Bo Ryan as coach of the year this year. Give it to Crean, OK I can understand that because his team won the league and they were so miserable in past years that taking them to where they're at now is a big achievement. Matta would also have been a better choice. Izzo would have been a better choice. MSU and OSU both played all of the best teams in the league that they could, and they both lost NBA players who were their stars last year. A lot easier proposition to not have a drop-off when you're replacing a guy who went undrafted and is playing in Italy now, when you happen to avoid two games against the top-5 teams (very nearly two games against #1 teams) in the Big Ten. You could also make arguments for others, but I don't think mediocrity should be rewarded with a COY award.

Bo Ryan this year had very similar circumstances to Matta in 2009. Matta had a team coming off an NIT appearance, and he did add a couple good players in Buford and Mullens but also had lost a few good ones in Butler, KK and Hunter, and lost Lighty due to injury who ended up with a medical redshirt. But Matta was able to help get OSU to right the ship and make the NCAA tourney by finishing 4th in the Big Ten. But Tom Izzo's Spartans won the Big Ten outright in 2009, and he won COY that year as a result. I don't see how what Ryan did this year was any more impressive than what Matta did in 2009. I think this is one of those cases where UM choking may have helped cost Matta COY this year. Matta has done a great job in getting this team to finish 13-5 in the B1G considering their offensive problems this year.

Ultimately, whether that #4 preseason ranking will be viewed as fair or not will depend on how the Bucks fare in the NCAA tourney. If they get the right draw and put together another deep run, then it will look right even though it hasn't been an easy year.
 
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“These (conference) tournaments are for the fans,” said Matta, who considers the regular-season champion the true Big Ten champ, “so our thing has always been, ‘Hey, let’s just go play basketball.’ And I say that (because) I’m hoping what we’ve done to this point in terms of our preparation, and the games we have played throughout the course of the season, have prepared us (for) everything we could possibly see.

“There’s no magic speech or anything that I’ll give. We’ve kind of, honestly, been very laid back going into this tournament.”
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http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/con...h-matta-osu-makes-its-mark-in-tournament.html
 
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BayBuck;2314489; said:
Matta gets penalized for the preseason ranking, but there's Wisconsin at preseason #22/23, currently sitting at... #22/23. Tied for 4th in the B1G, right about where they were projected.
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Yeah, what's funny about that is they still finished 10th in the poll, which is a pretty damn good spot. So they were preseason top-5 and "only" finished 10th? Oh the humanity!
 
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Thad has routinely been criticized in some circles for his game management and X's and O's.

I think he's really done an amazing job through the back half of this year. From giving DeShaun Thomas, a generous 6'8 tweener at SF/PF, minutes at center in multiple competitive games this year to exploit match-ups against non-threatening bigs, to letting Craft and Shannon Scott wreck havoc for extended minutes as a undersized back-court duo, he has pushed all of the right buttons lately.

He seems to play the hot-hand a bit more, has found a rotation the players buy, and has really turned a very average team in early February, to a legit contender in March.

It's like watching a completely different squad from earlier this year and Thad should get a ton of credit for that.
 
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The man can coach. Nice use of the small lineup, with Wiscy not getting a basket for the last 7 minutes.

Three B1G Tournament Championships in 4 years. Thank you, Coach Thad.
 
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