With Ohio State in the market for a coach, could a Thad Matta return make sense?
Released in 1970, “Truckin’ ” is the final track on the Grateful Dead’s seminal "American Beauty" album. It’s a little more than five minutes long, and its appeal has been so lasting that it was officially recognized as a national treasure by the Library of Congress in 1997.
On a consequential day almost seven years ago, it led to the first words out of Thad Matta’s mouth. Seated next to athletic director Gene Smith, the man who had just fired him, Matta was situated inside the practice gym at Value City Arena trying to sum up the abrupt ending to a 13-year tenure that included five Big Ten regular-season titles, four Big Ten Tournament titles, two Final Four appearances and one national runner-up finish.
“If you want an exact thought of where my emotions are, there’s a great song that says, ‘Sometimes the light shines brightly on me. Other times I can barely see what a long, strange trip it’s been,’ ” Matta said on June 6, 2017.
Now Matta is in his second season back at Butler, where he once played and got his first head coaching job. At the same time, Ohio State has started a search to replace the man who replaced Matta – Chris Holtmann, who was fired on Feb. 14.
In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch, newly hired athletic director Ross Bjork shared what he's looking for in a new coach.
“We need to make sure that whoever we hire has relationships or can establish relationships at a high level around the state of Ohio,” he said. “If the head coach has Ohio ties, to me that’s an added bonus but it’s not the absolute.
“Experience in the chair matters, so having head coaching experience, I just think, gives people such a unique advantage. When you’re in that seat, and you’re seeing it in real time, it makes a difference versus not seeing it.”
As Bjork settles into his new position, the former Texas A&M athletic director has been trying to solicit as much input from former players as possible to best understand the profile of the ideal candidate for the job.
“What type of person? What type of profile works at Ohio State? What does winning look like at Ohio State? When you were there and you guys won all these games, what were the attributes that made it work at a high level? Those are the kind of things I’m asking these guys when I talk to them,” he said. “The program belongs to them because they built it.”
Bjork declined to discuss specific candidates and repeatedly stressed that Ohio State is early in its search for Holtmann’s replacement. Any reports of the university zeroing in on a specific candidate at this stage are premature, he said, and as interviews with potential candidates won’t take place until they reach their offseasons, it’s unlikely that Ohio State will name a new coach before mid-March.
The Dispatch has reported that the university has had early feeler talks with Florida Atlantic coach Dusty May and that former Buckeyes Chris Jent and Scoonie Penn are interested in the position.
Would a Matta return make sense? His name hangs in the rafters at Value City Arena as the program’s all-time leader in both games coached (460) and wins (337). He produced eight first-round NBA draft picks. After winning five Big Ten titles in the 33 years before Matta’s arrival, the Buckeyes equaled that total in his first eight years.
Many of the former players Bjork is talking to played for and still revere Matta. Four of his former players – Mike Conley Jr., D’Angelo Russell, Matt Terwilliger and Evan Turner – are listed as board members at THE Foundation, the primary collective supporting Ohio State men’s basketball.
It was unclear when Matta left Ohio State if he would ever coach again. Physically worn down and dealing with the effects of a botched back surgery that led to a permanent limp, the Buckeyes were losing on the court and on the recruiting trail. Ohio State still finished with a winning record each year but missed the NCAA Tournament in Matta's final two seasons. The state of affairs was so bad that Jae’Sean Tate was set to play football rather than basketball his senior season.
Yet after three years away from the sport, during which he collected his $10 million buyout from OSU, Matta resurfaced at Indiana with the title of associate athletic director for the 2021-22 season. Then the Butler job opened up, and when athletic director Barry Collier called, Matta said he realized he was ready to return to the game. After going 14-18 in his first season, Matta has the Bulldogs on the NCAA Tournament bubble in year two.
Two weeks ago, a feature on NCAA.com stated that among active Division I coaches with at least 10 years of service, Matta trails only Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Kansas’ Bill Self, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Virginia’s Tony Bennett in winning percentage.
Butler has been home for Matta and his family. He met his wife, Barbara, while they were both enrolled at the school, and the chance to get back into the game there helped get him off the sidelines and into the locker room again.
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It’s entirely possible that Matta is more than content to remain at Butler, fighting for a program that personally matters to him at a basketball-centric school that is also in a decidedly less demanding spotlight than Ohio State. It's also true that Matta’s first tenure at Butler ended on his terms when he chose to leave the program to coach at Xavier.
The man who fired him at Ohio State is retiring at the end of June. Eighteen months after being let go, Matta was welcomed back to see his name raised to the rafters at Value City Arena at halftime of a Nov. 28, 2018 home game against Syracuse.
“I am completely at peace,” he said that day. “Gene (Smith) still remains one of the best friends I have in life. I completely understand the nature of the business and completely respect what has to be done. If things weren’t going well right now, maybe I’d have a (grudge), but this thing is rolling right now.”
Before he was at Texas A&M, Bjork was at Ole Miss, where he tried to hire Matta to replace Andy Kennedy following the 2017-18 season.
Bjork declined to comment on whether or not Matta would be a candidate for the Ohio State job. It’s not clear if he would entertain returning to the school where he spent 13 years, but multiple sources have told The Dispatch that his former players support the idea. When Holtmann was fired, many of them reached out to Matta via text messages, imploring him to return for another run with the Buckeyes.
What a long, strange trip that would be.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Could a Thad Matta return make sense for Ohio State basketball?
