Thad Matta sat down at the podium and perked up in his chair a bit. Ohio State’s head coach had a little extra juice Wednesday afternoon, some added pep in his step.
“I’m ready to go,” Matta said. “I think from the standpoint of I’m excited to play. I’m excited for the event that we’re in so from my standpoint I’m like jacked up, ready to roll.”
Welcome to another season of Ohio State basketball.
Matta is about to begin his 13th season at the helm leading the Buckeyes. He is the winningest coach in program history and the second-longest tenured coach in the Big Ten behind only Michigan State’s Tom Izzo.
Last season was a rough one for Matta and Ohio State, however. The Buckeyes went 21-14 and missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008, and they finished seventh in the Big Ten — the lowest finish of Matta’s career. One player transferred in the middle of the season and three more departed at year’s end leaving Ohio State with just one member of its once highly-touted 2015 recruiting class.
For the first time in a long time, there were legitimate questions about Matta’s program.
But Matta chugged right along. He signed four players who figure to play key roles on this season’s team in addition to the top-six leading scorers Ohio State returns from last year. The Buckeyes open the regular season Friday at Navy.
“I feel like going into Navy, we’re going in with the right mindset,” junior forward Jae’Sean Tate said. “We’ve been working hard this week in practice and I think we’re hungry to start the season.”
Ohio State played its lone exhibition of the preseason last Sunday against Walsh. The Buckeyes came away an 18-point winner, defeating the Cavaliers at Value City Arena, 85-67.
Ohio State hopes to build on that performance when it goes on the road to open the season — a rarity under Matta.
“I think they’re pretty excited, pretty eager,” redshirt junior guard Kam Williams said. “We didn’t play to the best of our abilities last week and we’re excited to show how much farther we’ve come since that last game. It’s definitely an honor going to the Naval Academy to play and I think everybody is excited about that so we’re just going to go from there.”
Matta, too, is excited to begin a new chapter in his coaching career.
It all begins Friday night.
“It’s been a lot of hard work and this is our first opportunity to go out and see what we’re made of,” Matta said. “Just all the things that go into this game, I hope it puts them in a mind as well as an educational opportunity for them to learn about the military, to learn about what goes on at the Naval Academy.”
