The Front Row

I will be the first to speak up about some of the issues on this team. That said, anyone that thinks Matta should be fired...well I will say it, is clueless. I was at OSU in the late eighties, early nineties when OSU had a very good basketball program. Better than football while I was there to be honest. Matta is the best thing to hit the OSU hardwood maybe EVER.

We are bitching (and rightfully so) about a top 25 team full of first and second year players. Sucks to be us. 90% of the schools in the Country want our hoops program. This team has issues as I said in my earlier post, but to act like firing Matta is the answer makes me glad those folks have zero authority.

With your sure judgement, I take it you must know that Sully is NOT hurting after being totally abused by double teaming because the rest of the team has been so inept from the outside lately. The opponents D in the last three losses in particular make my point.

He has had back and ankle and possibly hip injuries with little time to heal.

Try putting yourself in his place.

We learned that this team doesn't have the killer instinct yet. They make a run and then do not capitalize on it by making TOs, and missing FTs

Evan Turner is going to be an All Star one day

I now think this team is in a "mental" funk. A we "can't win" mode. I can't entirely blame Sully..we put guys on the floor who have not really produced much like Smith. My biggest complaint about Sully is that he appears to be "soft", can't play defense very well, and has gone to a mode of "its the Refs fault", on most of his post plays where the shot does not drop. Look how Thomas contests a missed shot, and puts it back in, where is this from Sully lately.
What would I do,? I would start him and if I am not getting the results that he should produce, I would bench him, tell Williams-"you are the man", while Sully "froths" on the bench. Put him back in when he thinks he can contribute like he should be able to. What is there to lose at this point?
Right now we are only getting any contributions of any value from Craft, Thomas and Buford. Sully has dissapeared, I could beat Scott in Horse. Thompson, Weatherspoon, Williams, Siebert and Ross are bench figures waiting for Matta to make up his mind how bad he needs them,if he does.
Expect some transfers at seasons end.

I will be expecting that shortly after the Bucks are eliminated from the tourney around the sweet 16 we will hear about some ficticous injury that has been hampering big Sully's performance since about midway through the season. You know, something that they hope some NBA folks might buy.

I love the big guy and certainly would love to see him return for another season. And, while I'm wishing I may as well wish we could see him play his natural position for a season, too, behind a real center. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he's going to bail on us after what looks to be a very frustrating and disappointing season. He has been a very different player in both performance and demeanor.

2 pages of replies and I think it fits right in that Lenzelle Smith's name hasnt' been mentioned... Just like his participation in the game. 1 fga, 0 asst, 0 stl, 0 blk, 4 reb, 2 TO in 30 min. Sam Thompson plays the other 10 min and he has 1 fga, 0 asst, 0 stl, 0 blk, 0 reb, 2 TO. 40 pts in the last 7 games combined from those 2 guys. I mean c'mon, we're playing 4 on 5 out there, do something, anything...

Thanks LW, I appreciate it. While watching the game, I get pretty frustrated (well, when it's a game like yesterday) but I try to take the emotion out of it when writing. Not always easy, but I attempt to do so.

Speaking of writing, I for one am not ready to write this team off yet. They were the best team in the country last season and got chomped in the third round because of one off night (and still barely lost to a good team 62-60). Last year's team was clearly better. So, watch this year's group go to the Final Four or something. I know it sounds crazy now with the way they've looked lately, but we all know you can throw all of that stuff out the window once the NCAA Tournament arrives. Can't wait!

How many McDonald All Americans been in the program? Stop making excuses..

They are playing in the Big Ten and it is the toughest conference, different guys have stepped up at different times, ( Smith vs. Ind. ) , we have talent, we've seen it. The thing is , they have to do it ALL the time, the bench has to contribute when they do get their few minutes, ( huge Matta mistake ), and they have to hustle at both ends. This team could be an X factor, you don't want to play them on a hot night but then again, a team like St. Joes could knock them out early.

We've been saying Matta's kids have been so great all along, maybe they started believing that and forgot about the team being great.