The critics are out there.
Ohio State head coach Thad Matta insists he doesn't hear them.
"My thing is this on people’s opinions: I’m not real big, I don’t have a lot of opinions because I can’t remember why I have them," Matta said Sunday following his team's 72–67 win over Michigan State. "It’s hard enough to remember my opinions, so why I have them I can’t remember that so I don’t think a whole lot about it.”
As Matta's team started this Big Ten season 0–4 prior to Sunday's win over the Spartans, the noise from outsiders once again became loud. It's the second-straight season the Buckeyes appear to be in danger of missing the NCAA tournament and many fans believe a change at the top may be necessary to help get Ohio State basketball back to where it once was just a few short years ago.
Nobody forgets what Matta did for this program — he's the winningest coach in school history with multiple Big Ten championships and Final Four appearances — but many feel it might be best for both sides if a change were to occur.
Through all of the noise, though, Matta, his staff and his players continued to keep the blinders on in an attempt to get the season turned around.
“We just keep working and I tell the players, I tell the coaches to just keep playing," he said. "We got dealt a blow here a couple weeks ago losing Keita [Bates-Diop]. We’ve had a tough go. Maybe there’s a couple teams that wouldn’t be 0–4 going into [Sunday's] game but there’s probably some that would be.
"I was 10–9 at Xavier [in 2003–04] and four weeks later we were playing in the Elite Eight to go to the Final Four. Just keep fighting, man. Just keep fighting.”
Matta and Co. hope Sunday's win over the Spartans can jumpstart the turnaround Ohio State needs. But even if it doesn't, Matta had a supporter on the opposite bench Sunday.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo did not hold back in his postgame press conference when he was asked about the current state of the Buckeyes and the way Matta is viewed in Columbus.
“I shouldn’t say this, but hell, I’m happy for him," Izzo said after the loss. "From the standpoint of the way people treat him around here, I’m happy for him. He’s won a lot of games here."
"He doesn’t have to answer to anybody and he probably doesn’t need my support, but I’ll probably need his.”
The two-plus weeks leading up to Sunday's victory against Michigan State were rather difficult for the Ohio State program — point guard JaQuan Lyle pointed out the Buckeyes hadn't won since Dec. 22 — and the noise from the outside reached an all-time high after Matta's team was blasted by 23 points on Thursday night at Wisconsin.
But Matta, the Ohio State staff and players continued to say all of the right things publicly despite the difficult stretch. Now, of course, the Buckeyes hope to flip the script.
"I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep," Matta joked. "And I think we lost four in a row last year at the beginning of the season, but as The Grateful Dead say, ‘Trouble ahead, trouble behind, and that notion just crossed my mind.’"
"You keep rolling with it, man.”
