Do you really think Matta under-achieved this year? He tied for 1st place in the regular season and won the Big 10 tournament. His team defeated MSU and Purdue on the road. He did all of this with a 6 man rotation.

You can be critical of his failure to recruit bench players, but he got as much out of the team he had as any coach could have.

Did he get out coached by Bruce Pearl? I don't think so. His team lost by 3 points to a team that defeated Kansas and Kentucky.Sometimes, losses can be attributed to the fact that the other team played a little better on that day. That was the case in OSU's loss to UT.

No doubt that OSU overachieved this year. I don't know how that can be debated.

Now whether Matta got outcoaches in the Tennessee game, that is up for debate. I do think he was outcoached, but I don't fault him for it as I never thought of him as a great in game coach, but rather a better recruiter and chemistry guy.

Matta the recruiter














Matta the coach

Before this year I thought Matta was a so-so coach. After watching OSU all year he has proved to me he to be a pretty good gameplanner. I still didnt like what I saw in game in a few cases, and I still dont like the offense he runs, but he went up a few notches in my book in the coaching ranks.

...and Matta overachieved with this team for sure. Previous years maybe he underachieved with the talent, but not this season.

thedynasty1998 wrote: Why try to discredit him as a leader then?

I didn't. Izzo did publicly. I was just stating what was well known about this team. And watching them, I always felt Morgan was the leader of the team. Nothing more, nothing less. You just try to turn it into more then what was meant.

Izzo is an amazing coach. When he goes into a home to recruit all he should say is If you speand 4 years in my program you will reach a final four. This has been true so far.

I thought Matta did a good job with the bucks this year. His game plans were pretty good, he was able to get 6 guys in good enough shape that I don't blame one loss on being tired. I think you also have to get him credit for moving Turner to PG. I know many would say it was his only option but, truly he is responible for moving turner from a mid range 1st rounder to near the top of the draft. I would also point out I liked alot of the inbound plays he called this year and the teams free throw shooting was finally decent.

Laley23 wrote: Before this year I thought Matta was a so-so coach. After watching OSU all year he has proved to me he to be a pretty good gameplanner. I still didnt like what I saw in game in a few cases, and I still dont like the offense he runs, but he went up a few notches in my book in the coaching ranks.

...and Matta overachieved with this team for sure. Previous years maybe he underachieved with the talent, but not this season.

When exactly has Matta really undercheived while at OSU? 3 big Ten Titles in 6rs, 2 tourney BT titles, an NCAA finals, Sweet16. This in only 6yrs when coming into a complete MESS at OSU.
His first two OSU teams...did SO MUCH better then anyone expected. First year, he won 20 games with O'Brien stiffs, with a team that was banned from NCAA.
Second year, they were picked in bottom half of Big Ten preseason...go on to win Big Ten Title and get a #2 seed.
3rd year, NCAA finals.
4,5....yes, not as good as many hoped...but looking back..not sure there was as much talent as many thought.
This year...exceeded.
He has exceeded more then he has underacheived.
OVERALL, Matta has done a great job at OSU and the future looks even brighter.
I think the guy is solid all around. Everyone has there own philosophies on how to coach, what they would do, etc, etc. But that doesn't make on right, the other wrong.

As for the Tenn game...please, outcoached? No, the OSU players were outplayed. When you give up dribble penetration and offensive rebounding..that isn't an x and o issue. Its an effort issue. OSU didn't execute. Its always easy after the fact to say a coach got outcoached when in fact, much of the time...the players just didn't get it done.

SPARTYBBCOACH...welcome to Ohiochatter you clueless dolt! Good to see you join AFTER MSU makes final four! lol

CBF, only last year and the year before. Its not so much underachieved a lot because the talent wasnt there like it had been previous years and this year. But they were MUCH better than an 8 seed last year, at least imo. I thought Mattas coaching last year took them down to that seed line.

The year before I thought they underachieved a little, but I didnt get to watch them all that much on TV, so I might have overestimated the talent they actually had.

I think last year was a bad coaching job by Matta, but I didn't expect much from them.

Now, for the Tennessee game, he got outcoached, if for no other reason than that he didn't play Simmons one second in the 2nd half.

spartybbcoach wrote: Hey Mulva, quit crying the blues because your over rated Buckeyes crashed again. They were out coached by Pearl. Tom Izzo deserves all the credit he recieves, and yes at times they do over achieve. But I woukld rather over achieve, then due what Matta does and under achieve every year. Typical OSU fan, always has excuses and can not accept that maybe there are better teams out there. Piss Off

Matta didn't get outcoached at all. OSU couldn't match up with UT on the boards, plain and simple. He also couldn't help that Lighty and Diebler didn't show up.

Mulva wrote: Obviously it's still an impressive run, but I certainly don't think it's the most impressive job he's done in the tournament (and probably not top 3). Example... I would absolutely say last season, given the opponents faced (3 seed Kansas, 1 seed Louisville, 1 seed UConn, who were all legit), was much more impressive than this current run, even without Kalin Lucas.

Prescott wrote:

Obviously it's still an impressive run, but I certainly don't think it's the most impressive job he's done in the tournament (and probably not top 3)

Are you forgetting that Kalin Lucas played 16 minutes against Maryland and ZERO minutes against UNI and UT? How many other coaches could lead their team to the Final Four after losing their best player and leader??

Considering the very next sentence I typed, I would say I clearly didn't forget that. They almost blew a double digit lead in a matter of 2-3 minutes without him against Maryland, and needed a buzzer beater to avoid the total collapse. I don't find going from up 78-66 to down 81-80 in under 4 minutes of game time to be great coaching. Then they beat a 9 seed and a 6 seed. I would say that beating legitimate #1 seeds last year with Lucas was more impressive than beating a 9 and a 6 without him. Again, just my opinion.

spartybbcoach wrote: Hey Mulva, quit crying the blues because your over rated Buckeyes crashed again. They were out coached by Pearl. Tom Izzo deserves all the credit he recieves, and yes at times they do over achieve. But I woukld rather over achieve, then due what Matta does and under achieve every year. Typical OSU fan, always has excuses and can not accept that maybe there are better teams out there. Piss Off

???

I'm not crying the blues at all. Actually, I didn't post one thing about Ohio State in this topic, let alone making excuses for anything they did or didn't do this year. For the record, they did as well as I expected them to. I had them losing in the Sweet 16 (to Georgetown in my bracket, but it still wasn't a shock to me). I was disappointed, but that's the way things go sometimes. It took me about 5 minutes to get over that loss.

Fact 1: A 5 seed getting to the Final 4 is overachieving.

Fact 2: A preseason #2 team getting a 5 seed is underachieving.

Izzo is in the Final Four. Matta isn't.

I love Tom Izzo but John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball. He has created powerhouse team everywhere he has been and two of those schools were Memphis and UMass. Can't say there is a program builder than him

Classyposter58 wrote: I love Tom Izzo but John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball. He has created powerhouse team everywhere he has been and two of those schools were Memphis and UMass. Can't say there is a program builder than him

lol, Cals not in the top 5.

Classyposter58 wrote: I love Tom Izzo but John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball. He has created powerhouse team everywhere he has been and two of those schools were Memphis and UMass. Can't say there is a program builder than him

LOL. I don't know if this is sarcasm or serious. Please clarify for us.

Classyposter58 wrote: I love Tom Izzo but John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball. He has created powerhouse team everywhere he has been and two of those schools were Memphis and UMass. Can't say there is a program builder than him

lol? I wouldn't put Caliperi in the top 10 of college basketball coaches right now, and you can take that to the bank.

Cleveland Buck wrote:

Classyposter58 wrote: I love Tom Izzo but John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball. He has created powerhouse team everywhere he has been and two of those schools were Memphis and UMass. Can't say there is a program builder than him

LOL. I don't know if this is sarcasm or serious. Please clarify for us.

Ha I'm serious. Bottomline is the guy turns programs around and wins wherever he goes. Ha I gave my reasons but he would defnitely be the first guy I'd hire other than Geno. I defnitely believe Geno is the best coach in college basketball overall

Cal is a top 3 recruiter, maybe the best (he hasn't quite done it as long as Roy, but he did do it at Memphis vs UNC).

He's borderline a top 10 coach.

There would be many, many others I'd take over him.

Cal is a top 5 recruiter, but i wouldn't put him in the top 10 overall, taking recruiting, in-game coaching, etc., into consideration.