It's a short list. Fred Taylor, John Havlicek, Jerry Lucas, Thad Matta. That is the Ohio State basketball ring of honor. Only one exited with 337 wins as a coach on his resume.
After 13 years, 12 straight 20-win seasons, two Final Four appearances and a title game, Matta resigned as the 13th coach in Ohio State history after two down years, increased scrutiny, and continued declining health.
Sitting next to Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith at a table in the Jerome Schottenstein Center, a building filled with banners celebrating success mostly achieved under Matta, he made his teary goodbye, thanking his family, the doctors who kept him healthy enough to coach, the media, his players, and the fans. His 13 years ended the same way they were throughout: good-natured and light-hearted.
With a reputation of moving around early in his career, Matta was a hot commodity in basketball circles when the 36-year-old was hired away from Butler to run a dysfunctional Buckeye program that had seen what Butler to run a dysfunctional Buckeye program that saw what little success it had through the early 2000s vacated by NCAA sanctions.
13 years later, Matta’s five Big Ten conference titles and four tournament championships are the most of any active Power-Five coach. The Buckeyes' 216 wins at the Schottenstein Center under Matta are the most by any team on their home court in that span, and the program's nine tournament appearances are the most by any coach in Ohio State history.
The next coach will be expected to win. They will be expected to build on the unprecedented success Matta had at Ohio State. They will be expected to erase the memory of the recent lean years, the years that have clouded the memory of the Matta's four Big Ten championships and rise to national prominence. In the 41 years between Taylor's retirement from coaching and the start of Matta's tenure, the Buckeyes won the Big Ten just four times.
“The wins. The losses. Those things come,” Matta said. “We hit a stretch here that was probably a five-year stretch that was about as good as any team in the country in college basketball.”
With a career conference winning percentage better than that of Bobby Knight, Bo Ryan and Tom Izzo, Matta’s legacy will be defined by the rapid ascent Ohio State made under his first few years on the job. In 2004-05, the Buckeyes were ineligible for the postseason but finished with a 20-12 record, an improvement of six wins from the previous year.
The Buckeyes then made the jump to 26-6 in 2005-06, won Matta’s first Big Ten regular season title and were a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament; losing to No. 7 Georgetown in the second round.
The 2006-07 season will be remembered as Matta’s crowning achievement. The No. 7 team in the preseason AP Poll, Ohio State again won the Big Ten regular-season title and its first of four conference tournament titles between then and 2013. The Buckeyes entered the tournament a the No. 1 seed in the South Region and No. 2 overall, advancing past Xavier, Tennessee, Memphis, and Georgetown before losing to No. 1 Florida 84-75 in the national championship.
Still a novice coach, his instant success raised the profile of Buckeye basketball and drew in some of the nation’s best prospects. Consensus five-star recruits Mike Conley Jr. and Greg Oden, the stars of the 2006-07 team, went on to be NBA draft lottery picks, with Conley signing what was at the time the richest contract in NBA history in July 2016.
Matta, who turns 50 in July, is Ohio State's all-time leader in coaching wins and leaves a legacy of sustained success that will rival those of his Big Ten counterparts in the years to come.
Matta also has an illustrious coaching tree: a group that has gone on to have success at other national programs. Sean Miller, coach of the Arizona Wildcats and three-time Pac-12 coach of the year, was an assistant under Matta at Xavier from 2001-04. His younger brother Archie was an assistant at Ohio State during the success of 2007-09 and went on to reach the Elite 8 twice with Dayton before being named coach of the Indiana Hoosiers earlier this year.
Other coaches with whom Matta has a shared history include form Butler Bulldogs and current Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens, and current Ohio State assistant Greg Paulus, who was a three-year starting point guard for Duke from 2005-09.
Despite his problematic health -Matta had his fourth back surgery in 2007- he was still able to recruit and coach at a high level, attracting a total of 10 future NBA players including De’Angelo Russell and Evan Turner, who had his No. 21 jersey retired in February 2016, to play for a program that had become a national power seemingly overnight.
Taylor, who is second to Matta in virtually every coaching category and for whom the street that the Schottenstein Center is located on, turned just five professional players from his 17 years as coach: Lucas, Havlicek, Joe Roberts, Mel Nowell, and Larry Siegfried. Matta has 10, with a possible 11th in former Buckeye Trevor Thompson, who was the team's starting center this past season and has been working out for NBA teams in advance of this month's draft.
Matta’s five Big Ten conference titles and four tournament championships are the most of any active Power-Five coach. The Buckeyes' 216 wins at the Schottenstein Center under Matta are the most by any team on their home court in his 13 years, and the program's nine tournament appearances are the most by any coach in Ohio State history.
While Ohio State’s recent struggles, including back-to-back tournament misses, wore heavy on the fan base, Matta never seemed to deviate from the big picture. In his final press conference on Monday, Matta said if he had been offered his run “sight unseen” when he came to Columbus, he would have taken it.
“If you had said to me '13 years from now you’re going to be here,’ I probably would have said, ‘where do I sign up?’” Matta said. “I would have taken that in a heartbeat.”
Matta’s successor will take over the program in better shape than what he inherited from Jim O’Brien. In addition to his on-court success, Matta created a self-described proud holistic culture. In 2004, the program had a 22 percent graduate graduation rate. Under Matta: 88 percent.
In 2015, Ohio State beat Virginia Commonwealth to advance to the round of 32, the Buckeyes most recent tournament trip, still on the floor just moments after the game ended and conducting his television postgame interview, Matta reiterated the program’s growth.
“You wouldn’t believe the state of this program when we got here,” he said.
Even when the Buckeyes hit rock-bottom this past spring, Matta remained in favor with Ohio State. He received an endorsement from Smith just days before the Buckeyes lost to Rutgers in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament this past March,which he re-upped on after the loss and consecutive year missing the NCAA Tournament
When it was decided that Matta would resign, which he called a mutual decision between him and Smith, is not entirely clear. Smith said that the remaining three years on Matta’s contract will be honored and that he will have a role in the program’s national search for the next coach.
As he transitions from program boss to an oversight role, it's clear his presence will cast a shadow over the success of the 14th coach. Even if Matta, always quick-witted, would rather not have it that way.
“Let me get this straight: if the guy comes in and does great, I was involved. If he doesn’t do well, I had nothing to do with it,” Matta said.
In his to-be-determined capacity, Matta said his first priority is his health, which he revealed Tuesday was worse than previously assumed. He never let on about the debilitating pain he experienced, which he said he never allowed to slow him down as coach.
Matta also said he does not plan to seek out another coaching job and seemed at peace with whatever his future holds.
“If I were to go back into coaching, it would probably be track,” Matta said. “Because when the parents want to cuss me out after the game, I can say ‘this is the time your son ran, I can’t help you with that.'”
Whoever fills Matta's shoes will be handed the reigns of a well-funded program committed to success and a history of sending players to the NBA. All qualities cultured by Matta, whose career will be remembered as the best in Ohio State history.
Will they record 337 wins as Buckeye? Will they get 12 years of 20 wins? How about a 13-year tenure? Only one guy in history can say he did all of that.
