Thad Matta has advanced deep in the Big Ten tournament on more than one occasion during his 11 seasons as Ohio State's head coach. Matta has gone winless only once while he has advanced to the championship game seven times.
And if the Buckeyes are going to somehow work their way into the NCAA tournament picture this season, Matta is going to have to work his magic again this week at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Many feel Ohio State needs to advance all the way to the championship game of the Big Ten tournament to have a shot at an at-large bid to the big dance, but even that might not be enough. The Buckeyes may need to win the whole thing.
And while Matta has all the necessary experience himself in this type of situation, this year is a unique challenge for Ohio State's coach. He has never had a team this young before.
"Somebody told me yesterday that besides Marc [Loving] we’ve got, between Kam [Williams] and Keita [Bates-Diop], a collective 24 minutes of playing time in the conference tournament on this team," Matta said. "It’s going to be new for these guys and hopefully what we’ve done we’ve got a little bit of an establishment in terms of how we’re going to play.”
The Buckeyes will almost assuredly be the least experienced team in Indianapolis and, as the No. 7 seed, they certainly aren't the betting favorites to make a deep run. Ohio State opens with 10th-seeded Penn State and if it can win that game Michigan State is waiting in the quarterfinals. The odds aren't great.
All four of Matta's Big Ten tournament championships have been when his teams were either a No. 1 or No. 2 seed. But he has advanced deep in the field before as an "underdog" — he made the championship game as a No. 5 seed in 2009 — and he'll need to do it again this week if Ohio State wants to make the NCAA tournament field.
There's more to advancing in a conference tournament than just playing well, though. There are outside factors. There is a game every day. It takes a certain mental state. The list goes on and on.
“You’ve gotta, in some ways, hit your stride and you’ve got to have the ability to get through some bad stretches," Matta said. "You look at every run that we’ve ever had, we’ve had some bad four minutes, we’ve had some — we’ve been down and finished games strong.
"It’s really sort of hitting your role, guys understanding that it’s kind of on the line. We’ve got to play together, there can't be individualism when you go into a tournament like this because teams are what advance.”
Freshman point guard JaQuan Lyle is one of those inexperienced players on the Buckeyes' roster who has never played in the Big Ten tournament before. Lyle said he has received some advice from the few older guys that have been through it before, and he even talked with former Ohio State star and current member of the Boston Celtics, Evan Turner, on Wednesday.
"They just told me to come in and be ready to play," Lyle said of the advice he has received. "The tougher team is going to win, they said."
"I just talked to ET on Facetime and he just said that, you know, the Big Ten Tournament is a grind. It’s a four-day stretch and he said you have to go in ready to play all four days."
Ohio State is hoping it gets to that fourth day.
