I am sure many OSU fans have read about this. Certainly not a huge loss...but it does hurt in the area of depth as well as for practice. OSU is pretty thin in the BIG area with only Lauderdale and Sullinger as listed available post players.


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/ncaa/08/17/ohio.state.sarikopoulos.ap/index.html

Best thing that could happen. Sure, it hurts in practice, but the guy wasn't going to play and now gives Matta another scholarship to use next season. The fact that he couldn't get any time ahead of Madsen told me all I needed to know about him.

Zisis was a nice guy. Not very good at basketball though.

thedynasty1998;455931 wrote:Best thing that could happen. Sure, it hurts in practice, but the guy wasn't going to play and now gives Matta another scholarship to use next season. The fact that he couldn't get any time ahead of Madsen told me all I needed to know about him.

This.

thedynasty1998;455931 wrote:Best thing that could happen. Sure, it hurts in practice, but the guy wasn't going to play and now gives Matta another scholarship to use next season. The fact that he couldn't get any time ahead of Madsen told me all I needed to know about him.

Well, the issue with this "next season" is that most of the big time recruits are pretty much locked up by other programs already. If they haven't committed, they have their list narrowed down to those programs that have been recruiting them for years probably. As good as Matta is as a recruiter..its highly unlikely he is going to be able to pull in anyone of high quality this late. Its obviously not a huge loss as I mentioned...but to have him practice, at his size of 7ft and 250+lbs...it would have given guys like Sullinger and Lauderdale someone they could pound on in practice. Now OSU only has two posts players on their roster with any size..and they could be playing together at times. Keckman is also out with a knee injury. The timing of this doesn't help. The roster with size is very thin currently. Some people don't realize the importance of having some bodies to compete against in practice.

Matta has plenty of time to recruit guys. And it's not like he's only recruiting 3 players because he plans on having 3 scholarships. He's likely recruiting 15 or so guys pretty actively and just doesn't know which one's will get an offer yet.

Plus, worst case scenario he reaches for a HS player and hope that he develops. You look at a guy like Terwilliger, I don't remember his recruitment, but he was likely a MAC player and Ohio State came with an offer. He's a guy that you don't plan on contributing immediately, but give him a few years and he becomes a really solid backup, and a guy you can count on for four years.

thedynasty1998;460301 wrote:Matta has plenty of time to recruit guys. And it's not like he's only recruiting 3 players because he plans on having 3 scholarships. He's likely recruiting 15 or so guys pretty actively and just doesn't know which one's will get an offer yet.

Plus, worst case scenario he reaches for a HS player and hope that he develops. You look at a guy like Terwilliger, I don't remember his recruitment, but he was likely a MAC player and Ohio State came with an offer. He's a guy that you don't plan on contributing immediately, but give him a few years and he becomes a really solid backup, and a guy you can count on for four years.

Plenty of time to recruit a "BIG"? Not really. Secondly, there are not many quality bigs out there. And its a NEED for OSU. UK just got the Davis kid from Chicago, a player OSU was hoping to get. And, again, as I pointed out...it hurts this season with the lack of depth at post.
As I have said...its not a big loss. But the timing was bad in terms of this coming year. There is NO question about that. Especially IF an injury happens to occur.

I get what you are saying, but I would rather have Matta have an extra scholarhip in hand to use, even if it's not the "big time get", rather than a wasted scholarship wasting away for another two years. I just think all parties involved benefitted from his departure. Although it hurts in practice, it won't hurt as much come game time as OSU has two legit 5 men and Light can play the 4 as could possibly Weatherspoon and/or Thomas.

Actually, there are plenty of good bigs available for next year. Amir Williams and Mikael Hopkins (Scout's #2 and 3 centers), are both undecided and both have OSU offers.