• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

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

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
OHSportsFan said:
Well, goodbye Archie Miller prospects. Going to IU.
Click to expand...

Bill Belichik has said something to the effect that he'd rather get rid of a guy a year too early than keep him a year too long. Obviously, Gene Smith doesn't adhere to that philosophy.

But fear not, I'm confident Thad is going to turn around a so-so team in a six-year decline with a so-so recruiting class. After all, his teams were really good several years ago.
 
Upvote 0
Jake said:
Bill Belichik has said something to the effect that he'd rather get rid of a guy a year too early than keep him a year too long. Obviously, Gene Smith doesn't adhere to that philosophy.

But fear not, I'm confident Thad is going to turn around a so-so team in a six-year decline with a so-so recruiting class. After all, his teams were really good several years ago.
Click to expand...
I'm legitimately angry right now.
 
Upvote 0
NFBuck said:
I'm legitimately angry right now.
Click to expand...
Same. Actually heated about this now that IU went out and got what should have been OUR guy.

And before anyone knocks me, this comes from a place of caring deeply about this basketball program. Check my history here. I love That Matta. I love Buckeye basketball. I want it to be better.

I don't know what's next...
 
Upvote 0
I'm getting the feeling matta is getting 'one more year'. This ends one of two ways. Best case scenario is the program declines again and matta retires next year. Worst case is they win 20 games and they think matta has turned it around. But then it will start to decline again and we'll be in this situation again in 3-4 years. Matta made this program respectable again, but I think his magic has run out.
 
Upvote 0
Matta isn't going to retire unless it's a face-saving arrangement to avoid being fired. He doesn't get his buyout if he quits. He gets $3.4 Million in salary the next year if he comes back for another unsuccessful season. You're going to have to fire him or pay him a lot of money and tell him to retire or he's fired and will get less.
 
Upvote 0
Hetuck said:
Matta isn't going to retire unless it's a face-saving arrangement to avoid being fired. He doesn't get his buyout if he quits. He gets $3.4 Million in salary the next year if he comes back for another unsuccessful season. You're going to have to fire him or pay him a lot of money and tell him to retire or he's fired and will get less.
Click to expand...

I think this may be where OSU's football school culture comes into play.

The way you make the decision to eat that 3.4MM and let Thad walk away is by forecasting how much money a "good" basketball team makes you. If the $ goes up as fans get the fever and come out in droves then you can easily afford to buy out old coach and bring in new one. if it doesn't then you are correct, using just a business lens, in riding out Thad's contract for another year.

My theory, and fear, is that revenue from basketball doesn't change that much from Final Four material to getting beat by Rutgers material.

I don't know that for sure but it could explain the decision to keep Thad another year more so than "Gene is dumb".
 
Upvote 0
Jaxbuck said:
I think this may be where OSU's football school culture comes into play.

The way you make the decision to eat that 3.4MM and let Thad walk away is by forecasting how much money a "good" basketball team makes you. If the $ goes up as fans get the fever and come out in droves then you can easily afford to buy out old coach and bring in new one. if it doesn't then you are correct, using just a business lens, in riding out Thad's contract for another year.

My theory, and fear, is that revenue from basketball doesn't change that much from Final Four material to getting beat by Rutgers material.

I don't know that for sure but it could explain the decision to keep Thad another year more so than "Gene is dumb".
Click to expand...
I think the revenue would be different. OSU can sell out the Schott with a winning program. The attendance the past two seasons has dropped dramatically. The revenue has to have dropped also dramatically. I can recall when it was difficult to get a basketball ticket, the past two years, piece of cake. That has to have hit the bottom line hard when you consider parking at $10, $7 hotdogs, etc.
 
Upvote 0
The Schott needs to be bulldozed and built much smaller... Carolina/Kansas/Arizona can support an 18k seat stadium... The Schott is much like the Erwin Center that Tejas built - multipurpose, horribly bad for basketball, and quickly replaced by similar sized venues that are nicer (looking at you Nationwide). Its kinda insane that Columbus with a population just over 1M has 2 18,000+ seat indoor arenas other larger cities dont have 2 that size.... ideally OSU's venue should be about 10 to 12k max.
 
Upvote 0
AuTX Buckeye said:
The Schott needs to be bulldozed and built much smaller... Carolina/Kansas/Arizona can support an 18k seat stadium... The Schott is much like the Erwin Center that Tejas built - multipurpose, horribly bad for basketball, and quickly replaced by similar sized venues that are nicer (looking at you Nationwide). Its kinda insane that Columbus with a population just over 1M has 2 18,000+ seat indoor arenas other larger cities dont have 2 that size.... ideally OSU's venue should be about 10 to 12k max.
Click to expand...

You mean like the old one they abandoned? Surely, that can't be feasible. Just look where basketball powers like Duke and Kansas - who are irrelevant in football (Duke's recent half-decentness notwithstanding) - play basketball. Beautiful, new, large facilities like Cameron (9,300 seats, opened in 1940) and Allen (16,000 seats, opened in 1955) are the key to a successful hoops program.
 
Upvote 0
Jaxbuck said:
I think this may be where OSU's football school culture comes into play.

The way you make the decision to eat that 3.4MM and let Thad walk away is by forecasting how much money a "good" basketball team makes you. If the $ goes up as fans get the fever and come out in droves then you can easily afford to buy out old coach and bring in new one. if it doesn't then you are correct, using just a business lens, in riding out Thad's contract for another year.

My theory, and fear, is that revenue from basketball doesn't change that much from Final Four material to getting beat by Rutgers material.

I don't know that for sure but it could explain the decision to keep Thad another year more so than "Gene is dumb".
Click to expand...

Basketball attendance noticeably declined.

In each of the last five seasons, men's basketball attendance has gone down.

I don't think Gene is dumb. I think he's being loyal to a fault.
 
Upvote 0
AuTX Buckeye said:
The Schott needs to be bulldozed and built much smaller... Carolina/Kansas/Arizona can support an 18k seat stadium... The Schott is much like the Erwin Center that Tejas built - multipurpose, horribly bad for basketball, and quickly replaced by similar sized venues that are nicer (looking at you Nationwide). Its kinda insane that Columbus with a population just over 1M has 2 18,000+ seat indoor arenas other larger cities dont have 2 that size.... ideally OSU's venue should be about 10 to 12k max.
Click to expand...

During the Buckeyes' hockey game, the announcers said something of which I was unaware but came as a pleasant shock: that OSU is seriously considering a hockey-only facility. I'm not sure what that means, should it even come to be, for the future of The Schott regarding basketball though.
 
Upvote 0
AuTX Buckeye said:
The Schott needs to be bulldozed and built much smaller... Carolina/Kansas/Arizona can support an 18k seat stadium... The Schott is much like the Erwin Center that Tejas built - multipurpose, horribly bad for basketball, and quickly replaced by similar sized venues that are nicer (looking at you Nationwide). Its kinda insane that Columbus with a population just over 1M has 2 18,000+ seat indoor arenas other larger cities dont have 2 that size.... ideally OSU's venue should be about 10 to 12k max.
Click to expand...
Don't blame fan apathy on the building. If the Schott had never been sold out and the fans hadn't ever created a loud, raucous atmosphere for a big game then you might have a point. (Although I would still argue that filling the existing building at 75% would be a better alternative to foolishly razing a perfectly good facility in order to build a smaller one. That's crazy talk, imo, but whatever.) The fact is that the Schott has been home to an electric environment on many occasions. Did you watch the Wisconsin game this season? I don't know but I don't suspect it was a sellout. But it was a good crowd and they got loud in support of a mediocre team. It helps a lot when the team gives the crowd something to cheer for.

Maybe you don't go to the games. Maybe you're romanticizing St. John. But watching games at the Schott is a much more comfortable experience than watching games at the hot, cramped, wooden-seated, no legroom, shitty bathrooms and sparse vending St. John Arena. This weak ass Buckeye team wouldn't have been transformed into a tourney team by playing in a smaller venue. The facility is not the problem.

I've been to numerous sold out games at the Schott that were loud and intimidating and everything you would want from a basketball arena and which resulted in big wins. Put a good product on the court and the fans will show up. Maybe not for a weak opponent at six o'clock on a snowy Wednesday night in the dead of winter. But St. John wouldn't change that. That would just make it less comfortable to sit on top of your coat on your tiny little wooden seat.

Amir Williams and Marc Loving would've been half-assing it just as bad if they were playing in St. John.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top