Try to imagine Ohio State basketball in 2017-18 without Jae'Sean Tate.
Following the firing of Thad Matta in June, that was a serious consideration for Tate, who said Tuesday on 97.1 The Fan that he considered playing football at Ohio State following Matta's departure.
"There was talk about me stop playing basketball, going and trying to join the football team. They were out of scholarships, so that didn’t work out, but I just didn’t know what was going on," Tate said. "We had a lot of transfers, and then when the coaching staff, we found out it was going to be let go, it was a pretty dark time around here."
Tate played a year of varsity football at Pickerington Central High School, where he was a standout defensive end, linebacker and tight end.
Tate said he consulted the advice of former assistant coach Greg Paulus, who played his college basketball career at Duke before pursuing a grad transfer to Syracuse in 2009 to play quarterback for the Orange football team.
"I actually met with Coach Matta and Greg Paulus, who had a similar career, where he played basketball and went on and played football at Syracuse, and after talking with them, they were just like ‘You know man, you don’t give yourself enough credit, you don’t want to leave your legacy here like that.’ You have to play your senior year, no matter what happened, you’re going to be one of the faces and leaders of this team," Tate said. "And after that, I got to thinking, and I’m glad that they pushed me to stay and put all my marbles in this basketball this last year.”
In the end, everything worked out for Tate, who averaged 12.3 points and 6.2 rebounds per game in his senior season, earning second team All-Big Ten honors from the conference coaches. He helped lead an Ohio State team that finished second in the Big Ten and went on to win its first NCAA Tournament game since 2015 before falling in the second round to Gonzaga.
