In the four-year period from 2010 to 2013, there was one college basketball program in the country that advanced to at least the Sweet 16 each season.
Ohio State.
It was the height of Thad Matta's tenure as the Buckeyes' head basketball coach, and one of the best four-year runs in program history. Ohio State was 123–27 over that four-year period. The Buckeyes won either the Big Ten regular season or tournament championship (in 2010 and 2011 they won both). Ohio State advanced to the Elite 8 twice in that stretch and made the Final Four in 2012. Matta's best team in that span, his 2010–11 squad, was No. 1 in the country all season before a buzzer-beating jumper by Kentucky's Brandon Knight ended national championship dreams in the Sweet 16.
It truly was the golden era of Buckeye basketball. There were jokes around campus Ohio State actually morphed into a basketball school. It hadn't, of course, but there was a buzz surrounding the program like never before.
Of course, part of this run came when Ohio State's football program was in a dark place following the tattoo scandal during the end of Jim Tressel's tenure. But both programs were booming for a while there. The Buckeyes won the Rose Bowl during the 2009 football season and in March of 2010, the basketball team was crowned Big Ten champions. In the fall of 2010, Ohio State won the Sugar Bowl*; the following spring was one of Matta's best teams.
*You all know why this is here
Under Matta, Ohio State basketball co-existed with football. They bounced off each other. The brand of the school was so strong.
That only increased when Urban Meyer was hired as head coach of Ohio State's football program in November of 2011. If the end of the Tressel era and the 2011 football season was rock bottom, this was a new high. And it came quickly.
And just a few short months after Meyer was hired, Matta had his team in the Final Four for the second time. The Jared Sullinger-led Buckeyes fell to Kansas in the national semifinal, but Ohio State basketball was thriving.
The Buckeyes were banned from postseason play during Meyer's first season on the field, but Ohio State finished that year undefeated: a perfect 12-0. Under Matta, the Buckeyes continued their run of success on the hardwood, too. Led by Deshaun Thomas, Ohio State made it all the way to the Elite Eight in the 2012–13 season.
Both the football and basketball programs thriving off each other.
Now, it's much more difficult for the basketball program at Ohio State to sustain success. That's been proven over time. Nobody is disputing the fact this is a football school. And this is even truer for as long as Meyer is in town.
But Ohio State can have both operating at a high level. Matta proved that.
Whoever Ohio State hires to replace him will attempt to do the same.
