Eleven Warriors

For many of us (and especially for the very colorfully-spoken among us on the open thread), tonight's loss to the Fighting Totos of Wichita State was probably one of the most deflating losses in a long time. Yes, the debacle and Madison was ugly, and it always hurts to lose in Ann Arbor, but the extremely poor showing from the Buckeyes in the first half of tonight's game had many of us hanging our heads at halftime.

The guys definitely played a much better second half than the first, though still deeply flawed. For a team that, as another 11W member put it, was playing on house money for quite a while, an Elite Eight berth probably - if we're being honest with ourselves - exceeded our expectations halfway through the season.

So the problem wasn't that we lost, but how we lost - looking like a bunch of chumps. In fact, I felt at one point like one of those years the football team got emasculated in the National Championship Game and someone said the teams must have switched uniforms in the parking lot, because Ohio State played like a team you'd never heard of before the tournament, while Dorothy State played like they wanted to make history.

Judging a season by one loss is always bad business, so don't do it. Even so, many fans are rightfully upset, and looking for places to lay blame and take out their frustration. For some, Aaron Craft was the goat of the game, throwing up three-balls with reckless abandon. For others, Tank's first-half shooting woes were particularly pernicious. But, as is often the case, the bulk of the vitriol seemed to be headed for the playcaller-in-chief, Thad Matta.

One of the most common critiques I heard was that Matta's teams lose to lower seeds in the tournament, and that is true, but with some major caveats. In seven tournament appearances in nine years, here's how it looks:

• 2006: #2 Ohio State lost to #7 Georgetown in the Round of 32
• 2007: #1 Ohio State lost to #1 Florida in the Championship Game
• 2009: #8 Ohio State lost to #9 Sienna in the Round of 64
• 2010: #2 Ohio State lost to #6 Tennessee in the Sweet 16
• 2011: Overall #1 Ohio State lost to #4 Kentucky in the Sweet 16
• 2012: #2 Ohio State lost to #2 Kansas in the Final Four
• 2013: #2 Ohio State lost to #9 Wichita State in the Elite Eight

Take-home points: Matta has the longest active streak in the country of reaching the Sweet 16 at four in a row. He's now made three Elite Eight appearances in nine years at Ohio State - one in every three years, in other words. Matta's teams have lost to lower-seeded teams five out of seven years, BUT, and here is the first BIG caveat, at least three of those losses came at the hands of big-name schools: Georgetown, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The ugliest marks on the record, obviously, are the first-round loss to Sienna in 2009 and the loss this evening to Wichita State. Those two really look bad.

Here is the big reality, though: when only one team ultimately wins all six games, 63 (well, 67 nowadays, I suppose) other teams go home beaten. In Matta's case, his teams have been a #1 or #2 seed EVERY. TIME. BUT. ONE. Think about that for a minute... If you're always ranked at the top of the pack, the odds increase considerably that you will be beaten by a lower-seeded team, because there are very few higher-seeded teams to play!

As I've said before, this discussion is all about expectations. At the top of the season, expectations were artificially high because of unrealistic preseason polls. Midway through the season, the expectations were artificially low because the team played so darn bad in so many of those early games, and many started writing the season off before the team had really gotten its act together.

After the Big Ten Tournament, expectations were probably just about right, with most of us thinking a Sweet 16 was not out of the realm of possibility, but then with each victory in the tournament it seemed more and more possible that the team that got outgunned at Champaign and Madison could actually make a run to Atlanta. We raised the bar on ourselves in the past week, failing to realize that all the flaws and faults this team had in January didn't just go away.

The team definitely improved, and Coach Matta deserves all of the praise he's gotten here in the past week or two. This season was a big success compared to any objective set of expectations and criteria. Let's celebrate the good, and after another glass of Scotch, hopefully I'll just forget the bad.

What a difference eight games can make...

Feeling somewhat like a sinner following a miraculous conversion experience, I find myself singing the indelible line from Amazing Grace: "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see."

Thad Matta is a helluva basketball coach.

For those who have read my work through the course of the season, I've admitted that I've not been a "fan" of Thad Matta. No, I'm not one of the drunken masses who thinks we should spike his head at half court and bring in someone new to take the tiller of the Buckeyes roundball squad, but I haven't been entirely satisfied yet, either. At least, that is, prior to the latter half of the 2013 season.

My problem has been one of expectations, I suppose. On the one hand, I was a huge fan of Jim O'Brien, even despite his poor decision making in the NCAA infractions that ultimately spelled his doom. What I liked about O'Brien, I think, is the same thing many of us love about Urban Meyer, and to the extreme, about Coach Kerry Coombs: passion, drive, grit.

O'Brien was, for this young Buckeye at least, the type of coach you want leading your team: a hard-nosed sonofabitch who took the talent he had and wrung every last drop of potential out of them.

When Matta arrived, it was clear he was a superior recruiter. Without denigrating the Buckeyes who played for Jimmy O, he recruited middling talent and in many cases overachieved with them. Matta, on the other hand, was going to be bringing in Blue Chippers, McDonald's All-Americans and One-And-Dones with dizzying regularity.

That made it all the more troubling, then, when Matta couldn't seal the deal. Well, or at least so it seemed. Twenty-win seasons are nice; winning conference championships and tournament titles are simply a given... But with Oden-, Turner- and Sullinger-type talent stalking the court at the Value City Arena, losses against top-tier teams like Duke and Kansas were perhaps more obvious than they had been a decade prior.

As others have opined ad infinitum during the past three weeks, Matta is indeed an elite coach. BUT, Ohio State is a "football school," so we unwashed gentiles couldn't possibly see how great our playcaller-in-chief really is, because we unfairly view everything through the lens of football, where the expectation is to win a National Championship every season.

Be that as it may, there are two undeniable facts of Matta's tenure: he is head and shoulders better than any coach since Fred Taylor, and he has failed to win a National Championship thus far.

Let's talk about the former first.

Comparing coaches to determine "who is greater" is a notoriously subjective task. The question was even asked recently, is Jim Tressel greater than Woody (the answer, by the way, is no, though The Vest very well could have made a case had his tenure not been cut short), so you can understand that the factors determining is X>Y are fairly complex, and not universally accepted in most cases.

With that in mind, let's put Thad on the racks against the legendary Fred Taylor (hey, he has a street named after him, so he's a legend in my book):

So yeah, Matta looks pretty good on paper. His winning percentage is considerably better, and within probably two more seasons, he'll surpass Taylor's total wins - a feat he'll accomplish in fewer than a dozen seasons versus Taylor's 18. Already he's scored more tournament appearances, though Taylor's Buckeyes made it to the Final Four almost every time they got an invite to the postseason, with the fifth time marking an Elite Eight departure.

And so it comes down to the inescapable fact that until the Buckeyes cut down the nets after the final game of the NCAA season, Matta will always be the greatest Ohio State head basketball coach since Fred Taylor. By the way, for more reading on how awesome Matta is when compared with legendary coaches like Coach K, Dean Smith, and Bobby Knight, read this and this.

Now as to the expectation about winning the National Championship as the precursor to Matta earning the universal fan acclaim he has otherwise rightfully earned, is that fair? I went back and looked at how quickly other big-time coaches took to get to the winner's circle to see if it could be done more quickly than a potential Buckeye victory in Matta's ninth season:

• Mike Krzyzewski, Duke: 11 seasons
• Rick Pitino, Kentucky: 7 seasons
• Bill Self, Kansas: 5 seasons
• Jim Boeheim, Syracuse: 27 seasons
• Bobby Knight, Indiana: 5 seasons
• Dean Smith, North Carolina: 21 seasons
• John Wooden, UCLA: 16 seasons
• John Calipari, Kentucky: 3 seasons
• Billy Donovan, Florida: 10 seasons

Only 11 active coaches have championship rings to their credit, as it turns out. Coach K is the Dean of this elite fraternity, holding four to his credit, tieing with Col. Adolph Rupp of Kentucky for second-most championships in history, well behind the incomparable John Wooden, who won a nifty 10 titles, a feat never likely to be repeated. Looking back in history, Bobby Knight and Jim Calhoun each had three to their credit, while several coaches have won a pair apiece.

I give you that trivia lesson to say this: the sentiment that Matta has to win a title to achieve "elite" status, a feeling I once held previously, doesn't stand up to the statistical scrutiny of reality. Truth is, very few coaches win titles, though several great coaches have won several championships. It's something of a paradox, actually, though the oft-bemoaned parity of the modern game is making it increasingly likely that a coach will either go an entire successful tenure without winning a title (Bo Ryan, while extremely punchable, has had an extremely good run at Wisconsin, for example), or win one title in an otherwise sterling career (I'm looking at you, Tom Izzo).

With that in mind, it's make or break time for Matta, because I'm going to join a perhaps optimistic chorus of experts saying that if there ever was a year for Thad to bring home a tourney title, this is it.

So how does it happen?

According to statistical genius Nate Silver, the Buckeyes have roughly a 5.8% chance of winning the tournament, behind prohibitive favorites Louisville (22.7%) and Indiana (19.6%). Ohio State as a one-seed in 2011, by the way, was a 19.1% favorite that season, and lost to Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen.

Silver's stats, by the way, make it look as though a Louisville vs. Indiana title game is the most-likely outcome, with the two teams rated as a 34.2% and 36.1% shot to reach the final game, respectively. Last year the guru's data was correct, with Kentucky projected as a 26.7% shot to win. In the aforementioned 2011 season, on the other hand, UConn was a total longshot.

SI's Luke Winn concurs that the Cardinals and the Hoosiers are the teams to beat this season, but has the "freight train that is Ohio State" besting Wisconsin (again) to win a relatively weak West Region. It is the weakness of this region, in fact, that has me taking the Buckeye fairly deep into the tournament, and facing off against two other B1G teams before it's all said and done with.

Consider the path to the title for the Bucks: taking care of business against the Iona Gaels (their mascot is named Killian, which is a passable mainstream beer) and Iowa State (there's your West Region sleeper upset, btw) before a good contest against the Lobos and another grinder against the fighting Bo Ryans (yes, I think the Badgers will upset the 'zags).

From there, Louisville will most likely take care of business against the Spartans, though I wouldn't count Izzo out in that contest - Michigan State could well have ended the Buckeyes B1G tournament hopes, and Izzo may be pound-for-pound the best coach in the conference.

In the South, Kansas will probably have a much tougher time against Florida than they will against UNC, and I'm taking the Gators simply because I refuse to pick all one-seeds in my bracket, and this seems as likely an upset as any. The striped Creans will not be denied in the meat grinder that is the East Region, setting up a Final Four with two one-seeds, a two and a three.

We know the Buckeyes can handle the Hoosiers, and we know that Matta has turned around an 0-3 start against ranked opponents to a 3-3 record against teams in the Top 5, culminating in an 8-0 run since the Madness in Madison. The "Big Mo," as it were, heavily favors the Buckeyes, who are indeed Battle Tested at this point in the season.

With Selection Sunday, also came the righteous indignation that after being seemingly overrated early in the season, the Buckeyes were now being undervalued after a stellar closing argument. This also plays into the Buckeyes' favor, as the anti-love from the media luminaries will give Matta plenty of bulletin board fodder in hopes that the team will play "angry," with the proverbial chip on the shoulder. That can't hurt in a tournament run.

Playing in Los Angeles, I'll argue, is the biggest challenge the team faces. Aside from fears of jet lag and the general feeling of funk that comes from flying across the country in a tin can with wings, L.A. may be the most distracting host city of the four regional venues. Indianapolis, of course, would have been the most Buckeye-friendly, with Washington, D.C., a close second.

As others have written, flying to Jerry World isn't much better than flying to L.A., but one would be hard-pressed to picture the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex being more potentially-distracting than Hollywood. Given the "Man on a Mission" mentality that has gripped the Buckeyes in recent games, particularly from the Rosy-cheeked Avenger, hopefully my concerns about SoCal are simply paranoia.

The factors favoring the Buckeyes this season are, somewhat surprisingly, extremely favorable when taken in totality: a now-underrated team is playing inspired basketball with momentum at its back in the weakest region of the tournament. Having already defeated the best teams in the toughest conference in the country and seemingly conquered the demons that plagued them in the first half of the season, Ohio State is poised to do something that hasn't been done in 53 years: bring home a national championship and cement Thad Matta's place as the finest head coach in the history of the program.

The curious case of Wally the Walrus Jim Bollman and recent rumors/news regarding defensive guru Jim Heacock got me thinking about Ohio State coaches of olde; specifically, the men who coached at Ohio State during the tenure of Senator James Patrick Tressel.

"Where are they now?" I pondered, noting that of the two former coordinators already mentioned, one is summarily despised by the residents of Columbus while the other is heralded as a genius, or at the very least, the architect of a shut-down defensive unit heretofore known as "The Silver Bullets."

Looking at The Vest's coaching tree, there are a few names that stick out, having achieved some level of success at some level of the game. Mark Dantonio, perhaps, is the most easily recognizable as a success story, as his tenure at Cincinnati propelled him into a near-tenured position as the head coach of the Michigan State Spartans. He's done yeoman's work there, guiding the "little sister" program in That State Up North, and recruiting against two of the best recruiters in the conference (credit where it's due: along with competitive eating titles, Brady the Hut recruits like a champ).

Beyond that, however, who stands out? Some names to consider:

• Tim Beckman, head coach of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini (are we allowed to call them that anymore?)
• Darrell Hazell, newly-minted head coach of the Purdue Boilermakers
• Paul Haynes, newly-minted head coach of the Kent State Golden Flashes

On one hand, it's pretty impressive that three of the 12 current coaches of Big Ten football teams are former Ohio State assistants under Jim Tressel. On the other hand, Dantonio is always just on the cusp of breaking through into the upper echelons of the conference, Beckman is on the hot seat in Champaign, and Hazell is completely unproven at this level of play (though his turnaround job at Kent State was inspiring, and a turnaround is just what the Fighting Mustaches need at this point).

Beyond the four guys currently working as head coaches of FBS teams, who else is there of note?

• Luke Fickell, the sacrificial lamb interim head coach immediate successor to Tressel in the wake of the Tat-gate debacle
• Mark Snyder, current defensive coordinator at Texas A&M and former head coach of the Marshall Thundering Herd
• Mel Tucker, current defensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears
• Tim Spencer, now-former running backs coach of the Chicago Bears
• Taver Johnson, cornerbacks coach at Arkansas (calling the hogs with Bert... oy vey)

Okay, not so terrible, then... It also appears that longtime Buckeye Bill Conley is the current head coach at Ohio Dominican, because everyone needs something to do in retirement. Fan favorite Dick Tressel, meanwhile (I jest), is now the offensive coordinator at Carleton College (that's in Minnesota), and former tight ends coach John Peterson is the offensive line coach at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Oh, and former quarterbacks coach Nick Siciliano is apparently a "coaching assistant" for the Cincinnati Bengals, whatever that means.

Moral of the story? While Mark Dantonio may be the biggest success story to come from the Ohio State coaching ranks of the past decade (I still have hope for you Beckman, and see lots of potential in Hazell), most of the gang appears to at least be working somewhere in the profession.

Which brings us right back around to Wally Bollman. Reading some of the comments from fellow 11 Warriors when Hazell made the somewhat questionable decision of naming Bollman to his staff, and again when Dantonio stole him away to restock his coaching cupboard in East Lansing, it gave me reason to ponder: if Tressel, Hazell and Dantonio think this guy is worth putting on salary, what are the rest of us missing?

In other words, because I think at least two of these guys are pretty darn good football coaches (yes, I like Mark Dantonio - perhaps it was that year I spent rooming with a rabid Spartans fan), I have to assume they put Bollman on their staff with good reason. While some see the "good ol' boy network" alive and well in Bollman's recent hiring, I'm more inclined to think Dantonio, who worked with the man closely in Columbus during a pretty golden period for Ohio State (14-0, anyone?), knows what Bollman's strengths and weaknesses are, and is choosing to soar with the one, and manage the other.

And so we come to the Peter Principle: "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence."

Let's presume that at some point, Bollman was good at something. And because he was good at one thing (I'm not saying I know what that is, because I don't), he got more duties added to his plate - say, Offensive Coordinator, for example. At this new thing, he wasn't very good at all.

Now because Jim Tressel valued loyalty above all things, Bollman was safe to continue floundering around and generally annoying the fanbase, because the strengths of the team - lights-out defense - compensated, for the most part, for the offense's deficiencies. Elsewhere, however, this was not the case. Urban Meyer sure wasn't going to play Tresselball, and Boston College didn't set the world aflame in 2012.

Enter Dantonio's hire of one of 11W's favorite foils, and we note that Bollman's duties are much more limited, perhaps because Dantonio understands the Peter Principle, and says you let people do the thing they are good at, and leave it at that.

Creating this sort of culture in football coaching is challenging, by the way. The lure of becoming a head coach is strong, and not for nothing: head coaches make a helluva lot more money than do assistant coaches. Of course you also have the intangible draw of being "the boss," of having your name on the door, and of getting the accolades (and condemnation) of steering the ship. While we adore our assistant coaches at Ohio State, how many average fans can name more than one or two assistants on their favorite teams?

To further illustrate my thinking re: the Peter Principle, consider Heacock and Coach Mickey Marotti for a moment. Heacock was one of the touchstones of Ohio State's sensational defense of the Tressel era. He did a below-average job as head coach at Illinois State (though hiring Urban Meyer was certainly a wise decision), but flourished when he found the right role in Columbus.

He didn't want to coach with his hair on fire, particularly when it came to recruiting, apparently, and when/if he returns, reports indicate it will be in a role that is tailored to the things that he does well, and that allow him to basically not do the things he doesn't want to do. This, by the way, is pretty good application of management theory, I think. The hypothesis at work here says that he will be more productive by focusing solely on the things he's good at and enjoys, while limiting the headaches and burdens of doing activities that are less enjoyable, or at which he is less successful.

Likewise Coach Mick: he is a strength and conditioning guy, period. That's his bread and butter, and his role is focused on getting these young men lean and mean. And as it turns out, when you look at the typical tenure of other assistant coaches, Marotti doesn't move around a whole lot - in fact, he's been attached to Urban Meyer since 2005. Meyer, in fact, has said he's not sure how he'd do what he does without Marotti's services.

While many of us assume that assistants like Tom Herman, Luke Fickell and Everett Withers are not long for this program - head coaching opportunities will pop up - the question becomes, can they be retained? Marotti is a specialist, and paid well for his services (somewhere in the neighborhood of $400k, it appears). Herman and Withers each pull in more than $400k, with bonus opportunities that would put them near or beyond $600k.

But is that enough? Head coaches make millions of dollars, literally. Like the Greg Odens of the world, on one hand you have to think the mantra is "cash that check while you can," because the opportunity may not be there again. Then again, if you're really, really good as an offensive coordinator, do you ride that horse as far as you can in hopes that you have a nice, long tenure in a town like Columbus, raising your kids on a very comfortable salary, working for a program that will get you to national title games consistently?

It's a rhetorical question, of course, because in most cases the answer is no. Then again, looking back at Tressel's many assistants who served five, six, seven years by his side, perhaps the question becomes, was Jim Tressel simply that good of a manager that he knew how to keep his assistants happily productive at the role just below their level of incompetence?

To read a couple of California newspaper columnists last week, you would think that California men's basketball coach Mike Montgomery is the devil, a child abuser, responsible for global warming, and a bad dancer. You've surely seen the video by now: in Cal's Feb. 17 takedown of USC, Montgomery got in the face of star guard Allen Crabbe, giving him a handcheck to the upper torso that may as well be called "the shove heard round the world."

Montgomery's physical treatment of a player drew scorn from a wide range of critics: the PAC-12, a state senator, and a San Jose commentator who said the coach's action was "shameful." In its statement on the incident, the conference let it be known that it expected its coaches not to make a media spectacle of themselves:

"While emotions can run high in competitive environments, Pac-12 coaches are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that will reflect credit on the institution and the conference," Commissioner Larry Scott said. "Each Pac-12 coach must be aware that they are an example to student-athletes and other students, and consistent with this influence and visibility, must meet a particularly high standard."

Indeed.

While the voices calling for a strong rebuke or stiff punishment have been many, the bigger issue I find with the situation is that it again underscores a certain neutering of the male athlete - and perhaps a broader emasculation of the modern male in general.

• DISCLAIMER: the sensitive nature of this very topic borders on political, and this commentary is not offered as political punditry, and I would remind my fellow 11warriors that we don't talk politics here, especially given last week's political fiascoes. That said, the issue of coaches "getting physical" is important, and should be discussed in our erstwhile forum.

To give you the background on this, I had completely missed this story until halftime of the Buckeyes' win over Michigan State Sunday. The CBS Sports studio crew discussed the incident, with most of the big-name analysts more or less dismissing the incident as an aberration. Greg Anthony, however, took a stance that caught my attention: "There was a time when this was socially acceptable."

Anthony discussed the fact that "back in the day," it was relatively common for coaches to give the young men in their charge a physical wakeup call in the vein of Montgomery giving Crabbe a pectoral shiver. CBS columnist Gregg Doyel, however, was quick to separate the Montgomery incident from other player altercations of yesteryear, including the infamous shot taken by our own beloved Woody Hayes:

I didn't see a bully. I didn't see a monster. I didn't see Woody Hayes slugging or Bob Knight choking or even Morehead State coach Sean Woods shoving and then verbally destroying a player.

Yes, like you I think the Hayes incident was much ado about nothing, but that's water long since under the bridge. I personally think The General is one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, and Indiana was foolish to run him out of Bloomington.

While a fair bit of the Doyel column discusses the situation in the context of bullying, a strong current in the popular conversation surrounding the Cal incident, he goes on to make some great points about the role of physical correction in coaching:

Mike Montgomery wanted to win that game against Southern California, and he knew his players wanted to win that game. He knew Allen Crabbe, his best player, had more to give and he tried to make him give it. And it worked, though I'd be saying this same thing -- hope I would, anyway -- even if Crabbe hadn't scored 10 points in the final 4½ minutes to rally Cal from a 15-point deficit to victory.

 

Now then, there's a line a coach can't cross and Montgomery got up close to that line. He was breathing on that line, and that line could tell by the smell of his breath that Montgomery was chewing Dentyne.

 

Maybe that's your problem, that Montgomery came too close to the line, and you're OK that his school and his conference and even his state senator let him know that another inch would have been too far. That's one way of looking at it, but it wouldn't be accurate. Because if you'll notice in the comments from his AD and the Pac-12 and even Sen. Yee, nobody said anything like, "What he did was OK, but not another inch." No, what everyone said was, "Mike Montgomery went too far."

 

Allen Crabbe clearly thought he went too far, by the way. Crabbe eventually poured in those points and sparked that comeback victory, but his first reaction to Montgomery's shove was shock, anguish. He left the court and angrily paced a nearby tunnel before returning to the bench. Allen Crabbe was not the slightest bit OK that his coach shoved him in the chest.

Watching the video of Crabbe's on-court reaction to the shove, by the way, underscores the importance of "getting physical." Not unlike a petulant child, Crabbe stomped off into the corner and pouted for some time before being cajoled back onto the court and delivering a much stronger performance to help the Bears seal the victory. Does the end - a victory - justify the means?

Before you answer that question, understand that it's the wrong question to ask in the first place. The physical correction was not about winning a basketball game - it was about getting the attention of a star performer turning in a half-ass performance. It was a wake-up call.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. The concept of physical correction is a frequent source of controversy and consternation among dog trainers (see here and here), and yes, even among members of our Armed Forces. Opinions on the use of physical force to correct behavior or performance, of course, are mixed and often emotional. As it relates to dog training, for what it's worth, I ascribe to the philosophies espoused by the Monks of New Skete and Temple Grandin: physical correction absolutely plays a role in proper training and development, should be used sparingly and only when the trainer doing the correction understands the appropriate force and method to use in a given situation.

But we're not talking about training dogs, are we? No, we're talking about molding young men. The differences are obvious, but the parallels should be as well.

Anthony said it plainly: what is socially acceptable today pales in comparison to what was socially acceptable 10, 20 and especially 30 years ago. In many cases, that is a great thing. When it comes to the shaping of young men, I fear the opposite is true (said as a man raised in a home where Dad's hand across his son's backsides was the ultimate deterrent to bad behavior).

I began to explore this concept in a newspaper column I wrote several years ago on the subject of "the problem with boys." I got started on the subject after reading comments from author and therapist Michael Gurian in his book, “The Purpose of Boys.”

“Girls outperform boys in nearly every academic area,” Gurian writes. “Many of the old principles of education are diminished. In a classroom of 30 kids, about five boys will begin to fail in the first few years of preschool and elementary school. By fifth grade, they will be diagnosed as learning disabled, ADD/ADHD, behaviorally disordered or unmotivated.”

Gurian went on to point out that the challenge of educating boys gets even more difficult after being labeled: “They will no longer do their homework (though they may say they are doing it), they will disrupt class or withdraw from it. They will find a few islands of competence (like video games or computers) and overemphasize those.”

Know any young boys who fit that description?

The author stressed that there are differences – some subtle, others more pronounced – between boys and girls of school age. “Boys have a lot of Huck Finn in them – they don’t, on average, learn as well as girls by sitting still, concentrating, multitasking, listening to words. For 20 years, I have been taking brain research into homes and classrooms to show teachers, parents and others how differently boys and girls learn. Once a person sees a PET or SPECT scan of a boy’s brain and a girl’s brain, showing the different ways these brains learn, they understand. As one teacher put it to me, ‘Wow, no wonder we’re having so many problems with boys.’”

Now, think about the Crabbe correction in the context of Gurian's comments. Is Crabbe's reaction to the correction merely an exhibition of the male ego at work, the beta dog called out by the pack alpha going off to lick his chops before coming back into the fold and getting line?

WALK THE LINE. Last week I read an interesting column, "The Incredible Shrinking Man." In it, writer Joel Hilliker observes that the modern male is suffering from a crisis of ambition, and that the woman of today is the man of our fathers' generation:

Measurements of men’s shriveling ambitions are everywhere. Consider the five milestones that sociologists traditionally use to define the transition to adulthood: finishing school, leaving the parents’ nest, becoming financially independent, getting married and having a child. In 1960, about two thirds of men had passed all five milestones by age 30. By 2000, it had dropped to half that. In 1970, four in five 25-to-29-year-old men were married. Now the figure is two in five.

 

What are these guys doing? Nearly six in ten of them—among 18-to-24-year-old males—live with their parents. Even among 25-to-34-year-olds, it’s still almost two in ten.

 

Lest you think this is simply a sign of today’s troubled economy, consider: Those figures are almost double the rate among women the same age.

 

And forget masculine financial independence. Nearly 60 percent of parents are giving money to their grown kids—a lot of money. Adults between ages 18 and 34 who enjoy parental subsidies receive a hearty average of $38,340 a year. It’s localized Social Security, flipped upside down, with older workers supporting younger “retirees.”

 

And wouldn’t you know it, young men seem perfectly content with—or perhaps complacent about—their dependency. They’ve grown up in a world that praises them indiscriminately and teaches them never to judge. As a result, research shows, these “failures to launch” actually have ample self-esteem, and they’re confident success will come to them (though they’re not necessarily motivated to chase it down). They feel plenty good about themselves, living in Mom’s basement.

By way of disclaimer, Hilliker writes for the official news magazine of the Philadelphia Church of God, so the entire piece reads as though it could easily come from a conservative pundit. I tell you that only by way of warning - I'm not sharing the piece to make this a discussion of politics or religion, but rather to open the discussion on an important issue: how do we rear our children, specifically young men who are - by most every measure - falling way behind their female counterparts?

California state Senator Leland Yee (D., Calif.), sees the issue as fairly black and white as it relates to athletic coaches: it is a hands-off proposition.

"You don't allow a history professor to push a student as a learning lesson. I don't understand why you'd do that in the athletics department. While this is a basketball game, this is still part of the instructional program of the UC system," said Yee, a Cal alumnus who called for the university to suspend Montgomery for daring to lay a finger on Crabbe.

I'll agree with Doyell: there is a fine line to walk when it comes to employing the physical correction. Given the litigious nature of our society, and a "no liability is the best kind of liability" mindset among athletic and academic leaders, I'm guessing that the Gene Smiths of the world are telling their coaches that the party line is "no touching allowed." No one wants their most visible coaches engendering a media maelstrom, after all.

While the line to walk is very fine and fraught with potential pitfalls, as a father-to-be (I'm in the hospital for delivery as I'm writing this, btw) I worry about the societal trend toward turning legitimate physical corrections into appearances of child abuse. Yes, my parents spanked my brother and me - not paddled, because Dad didn't feel that added any more to the correction, though my maternal grandfather was fond of the hickory switch freshly picked from the tree out back - and I'm content to say that I've turned out just fine, and indeed feel like my parents did an exceptional job.

The bottom line is that Coach Montgomery did what he thought was right in the context of the game and his relationship with his star guard. It worked. Woody Hayes and Bobby Knight were passionate SOBs who got the best out of their players through a strong will and a firm hand. Young men today, I fear, are slipping through the cracks at an alarming rate - the disappearance of men like Hayes and the public branding of men like Montgomery can hardly be viewed as a mere coincidence in context.

With conference expansion talk percolating again in recent days, I've been revisiting my previous analyses (here and here) of logical Big Ten expansion strategy and potential targets. Let's remember the givens:

1. On-field product isn't everything (but it is nonetheless a piece of the puzzle);
2. Demographics is everything: people watch TV, and TV means money;
3. University presidents truly rule the Big Ten, and will not accept academic mediocrity;
4. More than one school in a state does not add value, it splits the same pie into smaller pieces; and,
5. Notre Dame is no longer the white whale.

With that in mind, there are three basic guiding principles I followed in choosing the most logical targets: They will be in states contiguous to the current, or expanded Big Ten footprint; they will be large, public flagship institutions; and, they will be members of the Association of American Universities.

While there are exceptions to these rules, the exceptions are quite few. Yes, Northwestern is a smaller, private university, but it was a founding member of the conference, predating Ohio State by 16 years. Yes, Nebraska is no longer a member of the AAU, but it was at the time of its admittance, and was excluded from the AAU because UNL failed to score highly enough on a set of four criteria including research expenditures, National Academy members, faculty awards and citations. Nebraska's prowess as a research institution is no less than it was before, but the members of the AAU voted to kick them out nonetheless.

The strategy at this point, based on the criteria above and my previous analysis of television marketing areas, seems pretty clear. After picking up Rutgers and Maryland, Jim Delaney should raid the Atlantic Coast Conference to add the following schools:

• The University of Virginia
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• The Georgia Institute of Technology

Plucking three high-profile members of the conference will not only put the ACC into a flummox, it will also fire up the engines of conference realignment across the country. The PAC-12 could again choose to strip some members from the Big 12, which, along with my recommendation that Delaney pick up Kansas, could put that conference once again in a state of distress, uncertainty, and ultimately instability.

Instability in this case, is a great thing for the B1G, because it could ultimately open the doors for uber-powerful Texas to bolt from the conference. It is my estimation that Texas has replaced (or should replace, since I don't actually have a window into Jim Delaney's thought process) Notre Dame as the Big Ten's White Whale.

Now, if you're counting at this point, the conference would clock in at 18 members (not counting Texas, because I still hold that pulling the Longhorns into the family is a big challenge, and not the most likely outcome in the expansion games). B1G expansion could stop there, as Ohio State's own Gordon Gee recently acknowledged a target of somewhere between 16 and 20 teams.

An 18-team conference doesn't get as much attention in most folks' prognostications, interestingly enough, though it strikes me that with a move to a 9-game conference schedule, an 18-team conference creates two 9-team divisions.

Ultimately, though, I think the big picture strategy is a push for a 20-team "super conference" with four five-team "pods" (though certainly a 16-team conference would lend itself to four NFL-style "divisions," though obviously the collegiate post-season would have to change dramatically to see any type of runoff ahead of a conference championship). So given the 18-teams listed above - the current 14 plus Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Kansas, how do we get to 20?

Florida State may actually be the next most-logical target.

The demographic attraction is blatantly obvious: Florida is a state of huge importance, and while the Gators may be the premiere program in the state du jour, it hasn't always been thus. For those who think "The U" is a candidate, perish the thought. There are absolutely zero compelling reasons to admit Miami to the Big Ten (Florida is a much better fit, but obviously isn't going to bolt from the SEC, well, ever).

FSU was not on my radar previously simply because they are not currently members of the AAU. However, I admit my original snubbing may have been short-sighted. A large, public, flagship state university, FSU has very similar characteristics to many of the current members of the conference. From what I've gathered in an initial online search, the middle 50% of the Fall 2012 incoming freshmen class had a GPA range from 3.7 – 4.2 with an SAT range from 1160 to 1290 and an ACT range from 26 – 29. Those stats aren't bad at all.

The university's freshman retention rate is 91%, one of the highest retention rates in the United States. Furthermore, the school has a 72% six-year graduation rate compared to the national average six-year graduation rate of 53%; in other words, it passes the academic "smell test."

AAU membership is as much about research as it is about anything, and on this front it appears there is work to be done. In fact, the University's strategic plan places significant emphasis on improving the school's research commitment, and mentions improving its graduate programming to the standards incident to attaining membership in the prestigious consortium. As early as 2006, Florida State was considering what might need to be done to achieve membership, going so far as to commission a review from former AAU president Nils Hasselmo (also the former president of the University of Minnesota).

Given President Gee's comments that “there are opportunities to move further south in the East and possibly a couple of Midwest universities," it is safe to assume that FSU's current academic stature and attempts to attain AAU status could be enough to persuade the B1G honchos that the Seminoles are - at the very least - no poorer a fit academically than the Cornhuskers. While Gee did not specify any potential expansion targets, he told the OSU athletic council in December that Big Ten leaders (the people, not the division) will make sure any new school has “like-minded academic integrity.”

Relative to television revenues, FSU certainly has a lot to offer: while Tallahassee is only the #105 television market in the country, neighboring Jacksonville is #49 with 678,000 households, nearby Orlando/Daytona Beach is #19 with 1.45 million homes, and Tampa/St. Pete clocks in all the way up to market #14 with 1.8 million potential viewing households.

Yeah, Florida's a big deal in TV land.

So perhaps Delaney's air raid of the ACC needs to include all four teams: Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Florida State. The resulting chaos would allow the SEC to pick up NC State and Virginia Tech, as well as Miami and Clemson if it were so inclined (though I'm not suggesting this makes sense, just a wild-ass possibility). Delaney likely learned his lesson the last time and won't tiptoe around taking multiple scalps at once - as has been reported since, had he realized how quickly the chips would fall the last time, he would have picked up Mizzou and perhaps even Kansas while the Big 12 was in self-destruct mode.

Speaking of which, if the play for the big fish of the ACC works, the PAC-12 and SEC will have to pick up additional teams, remembering that we're all pushing to the magical 20-team "screw you NCAA, we're in charge now" superconference end-game. That means the Big 12 is likely the most vulnerable conference left. While the PAC-12 can pluck some up-and-comers from the WAC or the Mountain West (Hawaii and Boise State, anyone?), the Big 12 doesn't have as many likely candidates. In fact, given half a chance, it seems plausible that Kansas would want to come to the Big Ten, and should enough teams see a better fiscal opportunity with the PAC or the B1G, the infamous grant of rights could become a thing of the past.

Given Gee's mention of other midwest schools as candidates, it seems logical to conclude Kansas is among them, though I'm not ruling out Mizzou as a potential pick-up, as I think they are a much better "cultural" fit in the Big Ten than in the Southeastern Conference.

Which is just what the Big Ten might need if Delaney wants to reel in that White Whale of Austin.

This piece in this morning's Buckshots, coupled with this infographic from this morning's Skull Session, got me pondering on the subject of geography and recruiting in Big Ten football. So, as is my habit when I find something that intrigues me, I do some data analysis. Here's what I've learned thus far:

Ohio is as important a recruiting ground as they come: the Buckeye State is the second most-common state of origin on the rosters of SIX teams in the conference (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern and Wisconsin), and comes in third on a seventh (Iowa). Counting Ohio State, that means Ohio recruits are among the largest factions on EIGHT of 12 teams in the Big Ten.

Other fun facts:

• On average (and not counting Ohio State, 11.5% of a team's roster is comprised of Ohio talent.
• Ohio State has the highest percentage of in-state talent of any team in the B1G: 68%
• Purdue has the lowest percentage of in-state talent of any team in the B1G: 23%
• Ohio State is the only team in the conference to feature >50% in-state talent on its roster.
• The average B1G team roster is comprised of only 42.9% home-state players.
• Six Canadians play in the B1G, including three on the Iowa bench, and one each for the Spartans, Wolverines and Nittany Lions.
• Two Australians play in the conference, Indiana freshman Marcus Kinsella and Iowa sophomore punter Jonny Mullings, both punters
• The average B1G team features players from roughly 20 different states; Nebraska is the most diverse with 24 states represented, while Michigan State is the least diverse at only 15 states on the roster (Ohio State and Wisconsin each have players from only 16 states on the 2012 roster).
• Ohio players make up 24% of the Spartans' roster and 21% of the Wolverines'
• Ohio State is the only team in the conference that doesn't have at least one additional state represented by more than 10% of its roster
• Not surprisingly, Florida is a very important state for B1G recruits: six teams have the state as the #2 or #3 most-represented state on their rosters, and Purdue actually has as many players from Florida on the 2012 roll as it did players from Indiana (23% each).
• Penn State's #2 state for current players to call home is Maryland, with 13%; three teams have Texas listed as their #2 state (Minnesota, Nebraska and Northwestern).

I could spend hours sifting and sorting this data alone, but as time is a precious commodity, I'll stop here for now. I'm going to go back and further examine how each team recruits outside the traditional Big Ten footprint, and specifically how well (or at least, how frequently) the conference does in pulling recruits from SEC country, as that appears to be more and more important in the current recruiting arms race.

I'll keep you posted.

With the news that the Cleveland Browns have tapped former offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski to be the team's sixth head coach in 13 years, fans have shifted from speculation over who the new play caller would be to "why in the hell did they hire him?" As fans, it is practically our moral obligation to call into question the management decisions made in the running of our favorite teams (see similar conversation among Ohio State fans circa 2000 under heading "Jim who?"), and the Browns hire is no different.

The key question, posed by the always-astute TennBuckeye here, is what exactly is the appropriate expectation for the Browns moving forward?

As a kid who grew up rooting for the other Ohio NFL team and who married into a family of rabid Steelers fans, I'm well aware that expectations vary widely among fanbases, and that expectations are the key to success in the National Football League.

Perhaps then it would be useful to examine recent history and pose scenarios that might be qualified as a "success" for a hire that appears to have summarily underwhelmed (or in some cases outright infuriated) fans looking for a bigger "name" to take the tiller.

With only a single playoff berth to their credit since 1999, is simply making the playoffs sufficient, and how likely is that given their divisional competition in Ohio and Pennsylvania? Is another wildcard-game appearance enough for fans to stop pondering who the next head coach should be?

Or perhaps a simple improvement in the W-L column is enough to keep the pitchforks and torches safely stowed for another season. But there again, as TennBuckeye pointed out, does that mean just six or seven wins, or is .500 the minimum standard of performance?

To give us some frame of reference, it would be useful to consider other coaches in the division for a moment, to see what the standard of excellence looks like. The other team with Paul Brown's fingerprints on its DNA, the Bengals, have traditionally underperformed fans expectations on a relatively regular basis (I grew up rooting for Boomer and hating the 49ers, for what it's worth), so we'll start with Marvin Lewis.

A combined 79-80-1 at Cincinnati (.496), Lewis has gotten the orange and black to the postseason just four times in 10 seasons: four wildcard games, and four losses. In fact, Lewis' Bengals only managed records better than .500 in those same four seasons, though he managed to break even in three additional campaigns, meaning he's only notched losing seasons 30% of the time.

Despite losing to the Houston Texans in last season's playoff attempt, the Bengals' front office was so thrilled with a 9-win season that they gave Lewis a 2-year contract extension, meaning he'll be at the helm through 2014. So perhaps, for a team that endured 14 consecutive losing seasons, Lewis' relative success is perfectly wonderful, and all is well in the Queen City.

Thanks to a victory at home against the Browns in the final game of the season, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin managed to avoid recording his first losing season, going 8-8 in the team's 80th year, and Tomlin's 6th at the helm. While the presence of a SuperBowl ring on his finger certainly sets Tomlin apart from many other NFL coaches, his record more or less speaks for itself.

He's taken Pittsburgh to the playoffs in four of six years, winning the AFC North three times and making it to the SuperBowl twice. For Tomlin, the playoffs are either make it all the way or bust out in the wildcard affairs, as his team has lost in its wildcard matchup twice, while making it to the championship the other two tries. His overall record is much better than Lewis', going 63-33 (.656).

Tomlin, by the numbers, would be the class of the Division, then, were it not for John Harbaugh.

Harbaugh, during his five seasons steering the hated Baltimore Ravens, has failed to miss the playoffs once. The Ravens will face the Denver Broncos and Peyton Manning this Saturday. The Ann Arbor native and Miami of Ohio alum has gone 54-26 thus far (.675), and failing to win at least 10 games only one year.

He's 6-4 (.600) in playoff history, and 2012 marked the first time in franchise history the Ravens have won consecutive division titles. God it hurts me to write that.

Despite having not made it to a SuperBowl yet, Harbaugh has been an unmitigated success for the Ravens, and his current contract runs through 2014; expect an extension at some point.

A perennial favorite among Browns fans speculating on future head coaching hires is former Steelers coach and former Browns player and assistant Bill Cowher. As one of only two men in NFL history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first six seasons as head coach, Cowher's credentials as an outstanding leader are well-known. (Bonus points: Know who was the first to hit the playoffs in each of his first six seasons? That's right, Paul Brown.)

In 15 seasons at Pittsburgh, Cowher went 149-90-1 (.623), winning the AFC Central six times and the AFC North twice. He went 12-9 (.571) in the playoffs, and won SuperBowl XL in his second-to-last season before heading to the bright lights of television analysis.

While he continues to tease fans with hints that he would be open to returning to the coaching ranks, I'm not sure anyone seriously thought he would come out of retirement to take the helm at the Browns, which remain something of a riddle as an organization at large.

So now that we've looked around the AFC North and at one fantasy coach, let's go back to the man who broke the mold, the team's namesake. In the team's first 13 seasons playing in the NFL, Paul Brown earned a record of 111-44-5 (.694), certainly qualifying him among the elite coaches in the annals of football history. Brown won four AAFC championships with the team before it joined the NFL in 1950, and then coached the Browns to three NFL championships – in 1950, 1954 and 1955.

His teams played in four additional NFL Championship matches, losing to the Detroit Lions thrice and the L.A. Rams once. His teams failed to make the postseason once in his first nine years, but failed to do so in each of his final four seasons at the helm; despite winning records, he was dismissed following a contentious power struggle with the team owner whose name shall not be spoken.

Brown didn't do quite as well in six seasons with the Bengals, going 48-36 (.571) and winning the AFC Central twice. He was 0-3 in the playoffs during his tenure as the head coach in Cincinnati.

Since 1990 the Cleveland Browns have only made the playoffs twice, in 1994 and 2002. During that period, they have only notched winning records three seasons out of 20. It has not been a good run.

While the lowpoint of the modern era is almost certainly the three seasons Cleveland was without an NFL franchise in the late '90s, five straight seasons of winning only four or five games comes in as a pretty close second.

In one of the high points, 2007, the Browns finished 10-6, good enough for 2nd place in the AFC North. That year the Browns were the season's only 9+ win team to not make the playoffs. Braylon Edwards ended the season as the Browns' all-time single-season leader in receiving yards with 1,289 yards, breaking Webster Slaughter's 1989 record of 1,236 yards. It was the first time in more than a decade the team had won 10 games.

The offensive coordinator of that team? Rod Chudzinski.

Hired to lead a team that has such a storied history, the more recent benchmark for Rob Chudzinski's success now as a head coach shouldn't be too high at all.

A rather heated discussion here got me taking a hard look at Ohio State head basketball coach Thad Matta from a statistical standpoint. While I am one of an unpopular minority who thinks the obviously outstanding coach is still a work in progress - or at least, that his work at Ohio State is not yet complete - my comparison of Matta to four legendary coaches and four coaches of current Top 10 teams proved that he is, on paper, the real deal.

It seems to me that, if one wishes to be critical of Matta's efforts or results in his first eight seasons in Columbus (for purposes of analysis I'm doing all my stats on the 2004-2012 seasons, setting aside the current work-in-progress), there are only a few areas worth examining. I think recruiting is an obvious area of strength for Matta, as is conditioning and strength training. I've also been impressed with his development of his assistant coaches, as a number of them have gone on to be successful in their own right away from the Matta bench.

So what areas are worth looking at with a critical eye? There seem to be three fairly oft-repeated lines of critique from Buckeye Nation:

1. Game management/play calling (or lack thereof)
2. Player management/use of "the bench" (or lack thereof)
3. Failing to win "the big games"

There may be other issues folks have with Matta, as well, but these appear to be among those I hear most often. Examining the first of these three is beyond my interests and abilities as an analyst, so I'm going to leave that to folks who are better at "Xs and Os" to decipher, though I'll admit that at times during the second half of the Duke game earlier this season I was frustrated that our plan of attack appeared to be "run down the floor and take the first shot you can force" (yes, that's over-simplistic hyperbole, just let it go).

The second issue is another that I think is highly subjective. While certainly there are stats that one can use to gauge the efficacy of the sixth, seventh or eighth men off the bench, these are also tricky, because in those seasons where Matta was somewhat notorious for only playing five or six men, the minutes simply aren't there to tell if the bench-warmers (not including the walk-ons and Trillionaires, obviously) would have made a legitimate contribution. This is the subjectivity I was referring to, of course.

For someone who likes to put the data on the table and let the chips fall where they may, the third issue is one I can actually get my hands around. I went back and pulled the stats from the past eight seasons for the Buckeyes, as well as for four other coaches who have been outstanding this decade. Since the 2004-2005 season, six schools have won the NCAA Tournament:

• North Carolina (2005 & 2009)
• Florida (2006 & 2007)
• Kansas (2008)
• Duke (2010)
• Connecticut (2011)
• Kentucky (2012)

I selected those schools, excluding UK since John "I don't need no stinking rules" Calipari has not been at the tiller there since 2004, and compared their performance over the past eight seasons to that of the Buckeyes to see how big-time teams fared against top-shelf opponents, and indeed if Matta won or lost more or less than those marquee play callers. I pulled each team's record, including conference winning percentage, as well as each team's record against Top 25 teams, and teams with a Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) ranked in the Top 50.

Here's what I found:

The first thing that jumps out at me is that Kansas coach Bill Self is in a league of his own, winning more conference games by far than the other comparison coaches, and in a conference with an RPI ranked in the Top 3 in six of the eight years studied. Further, he had the highest winning percentage versus ranked and top RPI opponents. While the Tobacco Road coaches played more ranked opponents than the Jayhawks over the eight-year period, Self's teams dominated their conference in a way neither UNC or Duke could claim (of course, they do have the distinction of beating up one another year in and year out).

As you would expect from coaches who have won multiple national titles, Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski put up jaw-dropping winning percentages, and they each win 6 of 10 games against ranked opponents.

While it will win me no friends among the "speak no ill of Matta" crowd, those who want to criticize him for failing to "win big games" have a leg to stand on, at least statistically speaking. Yes, his teams have won some big games, but versus ranked opponents he scored the lowest winning percentage of any of the coaches studied. His overall record, of course, is second only to the two legends coaching in the state of North Carolina and the aforementioned Self, but his record against teams with a strong RPI was significantly lower than that of those three rock stars.

I found the tournament records interesting. Certainly winning 7 of every 10 games you play should put you in contention to win titles, and Matta has been close on more than one occasion. Coach K's record over the past eight tournaments surprised me a little, but no one will be shocked if he adds six more victories this season. His lifetime tournament record, by the way, is 79-23 (.775), and if he does win the tournament this year, his winning percentage from 2004-2013 would be right at his lifetime average.

Speaking of lifetime tournament records, here's how these six stack up:

• Matta: 16-9 (.640)
• Krzyzewski: 79-23 (.775)
• Williams: 58-19 (.753)
• Self: 28-12 (.700)
• Calhoun: 51-19 (.729)
• Donovan: 25-9 (.735)

Again, I think these figures lend some credence to that niggling suspicion that Matta hasn't quite figured out how to close the deal. Win lots of games? Sure thing. Win as many of the big games as Hall of Famers like Coach K, Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun? Not even close.

Again, this is not to say that Matta is not a good coach, that he wasn't a good hire, that Ohio State isn't infinitely better for him being here than it was prior to his arrival, etc., etc., etc. What the numbers tell us though is that from a cold numbers standpoint, those who question "what next" with regards to our basketball program have a legitimate issue, and should not be dismissed out of hand as troll-hugging bastards who just want to see the world burn.

The irony of the recent discussions and heated exchanges about Matta's success is that while I was researching and writing this, Ohio State lost an embarrassing contest to the #11 Fighting Illini, and are now 0-3 against ranked opponents and 0-3 against teams in the Top 50 RPI. This season could mark the first time since the 2004-2005 season we have a legitimate concern that Matta will not win 20 games. Looking at the remaining schedule, if he does not beat any of the ranked opponents remaining in the conference (an admittedly worst-case scenario) and wins all of the contests against the unranked conference opponents (none of whom are in the Top 50 RPI), he will finish the regular season 19-11.

Based on his string of 20-win seasons, I don't think this worst-case scenario is likely to happen. Ohio State will top one of these ranked Big Ten opponents, probably during a home contest. How he performs in the post season, of course, would also affect that streak of 20-win efforts.

Will Matta win an NCAA Title during his tenure? I sure hope so. As well as he recruits, I believe it is possible. Is it time to put up a statue outside the Schott and declare him the greatest coach in the history of the University? Not yet... Someday, maybe, but not yet.

Comparing two coaches within the same sport is notoriously difficult. Analyzing the relative success or failure of a major college football or basketball program involves a number of variables and inherent subjectivity. What is the most important thing on which to base the evaluation?

• Is it purely wins?
• What about "big games" against ranked opponents?
• Which is more important, simply making the NCAA tournament, or playing into the upper rounds?
• How important are conference titles and tournament wins compared to NCAA tourney performance?

You start to get the picture that there are an almost infinite number of variables in play, and the priorities from one fan or analyst to the next can be radically different. For college basketball coaches, the criteria are much different from - and much more complex than - for college football coaches, precisely because the number of games played and the post-season structure are much, much different.

Let me pause for a moment to make one admission: I feel far less comfortable asserting my "expertise" as a casual basketball analyst than in discussing football, so I'm going out on a limb a bit here, but recent discussions on the topic of Ohio State University head basketball coach Thad Matta have me dying to enter the fray. Why, you ask? Because the discussion is fascinating, and because most of us as fans are naturally pulled toward one of two extreme positions: either A.) Matta is the best coach Ohio State has had in 50 years and that's the end of it; or B.) Thad Matta is John Cooper all over again. [Note: Before you go crazy, I'm not saying that is my opinion.]

During one of the aforementioned discussions in the forums, another commenter dared readers to compare Matta's results with those of other Ohio State basketball coaches for some much-needed perspective:

Look at Matta's record compared to every other OSU coach in history.  Look what he inherited and how quickly he turned it around.  He is so far above this sort of criticism that this blog post is a complete joke.

It's a great point. Matta is head and shoulders above his predecessors - the tale of the tape proves that. I had already taken a peek at Matta's performance compared to that of legendary Ohio State coach Fred Taylor, and I was impressed, as I mentioned following the Buckeyes disappointing loss to Kansas last month:

Are we better off under Matta than under his predecessors? The W-L column, Big Ten titles and two Final Four appearances speak for themselves. If you go back and look at the record books, Matta's accomplishments have already reached par with those of even the legendary Fred Taylor in terms of NCAA Tournament Appearances and his winning percentage is significantly better (77.3% vs. 65.3%).

Matta is also on track to pass the 300-win mark by 2016, his (in theory) 12th season at the helm. Taylor picked up win #297 in his 18th and final season as head coach of the Buckeyes.

In other words - Matta has earned his page in the annals of Buckeye lore. Is he capable, however, of closing the deal and putting up wins in big games, when it matters most? Two games this season offer ample reasons to ask that question. Big Ten play will tell us a lot, not only about this team's abilities, but of those of its Coach, as well.

The bigger question about Matta's greatness as a coach, however, is this: how does he stack up against coaching legends not affiliated with Ohio State? For purposes of comparison, I picked the first four "legendary" coaches that popped into my head: Coach K, Bobby Knight, Dean Smith and John Wooden (I'd be hard pressed to think of four bigger names in college hoops, I think). Taking a look at only their first eight seasons to be fair to the young Ohio State coach, here is the raw data, courtesy of the gnomes at Wikipedia:

Couple of notes: Prior to 1975, the NCAA tournament was very different from the one we know today. Among the biggest differences is that in '75, the tournament format changed to allow more than one team per conference to participate. Prior to that, teams like the 1974 Indiana Hoosiers were excluded from the tournament regardless of their ranking (12-2 and tied for 1st in the conference, in this case, but still excluded). The 1974 tournament was the last year this happened; comparisons with Smith & Wooden, therefore, are not exactly apples to apples in terms of NCAA Tourney performance - just a warning before someone knocks my teeth in for not mentioning it.

So, how good is Matta? In terms of wins, he's head and shoulders above the field; his teams have played more games in eight seasons than the other "legends" in this comparison - 286, versus only 209 for Dean Smith, for example. In terms of winning percentage over his first 8 seasons, then, he stands second only to "The General," the incomparable Bobby Knight.

In terms of tournament performance, Matta has placed teams in the Big Dance six of eight years, but remember that fewer than 25 teams (and as few as eight) were invited to play prior to 1975, when the tourney expanded to a 32 team field. In the Matta era, of course, a minimum of 65 teams had the opportunity to garner an invite, so his chances of doing so were double those of Knight, Smith and Wooden.

Looking at conference play, Matta holds his own, though both Knight and Wooden fared slightly better in their first eight seasons in terms of winning percentage. He trailed only the late, great Coach Wooden in conference regular season and tournament wins, but outpaced even Bobby Knight in his dominance of the Big Ten in those first eight years.

Okay, but what about against active coaches? Well, let's compare Matta against the coaches currently leading the country and see how he fares. I'm running the same dataset as above, but for coaches currently in the AP Top 10 (as of Week 9) who have at least eight seasons at their current position, and only for the 2004-2012 seasons.

Coach K and Bill Self set themselves apart from the rest of the pack by the simple virtue of the fact that they've each won a National Championship during these years, while the others have failed to do so. As mentioned above, only six of the current top 10 teams were included, as the remaining four include coaches at schools like Michigan and Minnesota where there coaches were hired sometime after 2004.

So, how does Matta compare? He's certainly won a lot of games, with only K and Self winning more, but his winning percentage is in the middle of the pack. No one should complain about winning 77% of your games, of course, but that isn't the only metric to be considered. Conference winning percentage is favorable, though the differences between the Big Ten and conferences like the WCC could be a debate in and of itself.

In terms of NCAA berths, Matta hangs with the pack at six of eight years invited, and in those six years his teams reached the Final Four one-third of the time - in fact, his two appearances in the NCAA Semifinals is matched only by Self; greats like Pitino and Krzyzewski only made it that far once in eight years.

This is a pretty cursory analysis; a much deeper look into the differences between Matta and the greats could focus on performance against ranked opponents, looking at the RPI, etc., but the crux of the matter is this: on paper, Matta is as good as they come.

His biggest black mark is that he has failed, in eight seasons, to win a National Title. How big a black mark is that? Compared with the eight other coaches we've examined in this analysis, only Bobby Knight and Bill Self won a National Title in their first eight seasons at Indiana and Kansas, respectively. It took Mike Krzyzewski 11 seasons to win a title, it took John Wooden 16 years to do so, and the legendary Dean Smith didn't do it until his 21st season with the Tar Heels. Jim Boeheim, in fact, took 27 seasons to win his first National Title at Syracuse - how's that for patience?

When it comes to keeping fans happy, there is no magic formula or set of metrics that guarantee a coach will be universally beloved. Even legendary figures like Wooden and Woody Hayes had their detractors back in the day, and in some cases, still do today. For some of us, myself included, there are reasons to be critical of Matta, and I personally believe as a young coach he still has room to grow, and continue building a truly legendary program here at Ohio State.

Our football program is among the best in the nation, and has been consistently for more than a decade now. And as we all know, it's only getting better. Our basketball program, under Matta's leadership, has become one of the best basketball programs in the country, and - I hope - it will continue to get better, and perhaps reach the level of success at the highest levels that many of us believe is still possible.

In my high school and college days, one of my mentors was an educator now working in the upper echelons of the Ohio Department of Education. Among the many things he taught those of us benefiting from his mentorship was to behave in a way that our actions were "beyond reproach," in other words living a lifestyle that did not leave oneself open to criticism of a moral or ethical nature.

I've been reminded of this admonition more than once in recent days reading some of the discussions in the Forum this week regarding Braxton Miller and Johnny Football.

My first job was working in advertising sales at a local Columbus radio station. One of my mentors there, the afternoon drive talk show host, was a former Baptist minister, and he, too, believed in living a life "beyond reproach." For him, that lifestyle included self-imposed rules prohibiting him from being in the same room alone with a female other than his wife, and saving and cataloging all email correspondence should questions ever arise about his actions or comments.

The concept of being "beyond reproach" is about removing any and all appearances of impropriety, and about keeping yourself out of positions to have your actions and motives questioned. As Buckeyes, we know one thing - when you're the 800 lb. gorilla, everyone wants to take a shot at you. For big-time college athletes, my advice is to consider how your actions appear to the unwashed masses, rather than relying on your own knowledge of your motives and intentions.

Case in point: Braxton Miller and quarterback "guru" George Whitfield. As reported earlier this week, the Buckeye slinger tasked the QB-coach-to-the-stars with helping the young gun improve his mechanics in preparation for the 2013 campaign. Even here, at a site dedicated to all things Ohio State (and where presumably there is a pro-OSU bias among the readership), questions immediately popped up regarding the facts of the case:

Member AHH SATURDAY asked an obvious question that made this reporter proud:

Happy to hear that Braxton will be getting some quality advice this off-season, but I'm frankly surprised such an arrangement is permitted by the NCAA.  How is Mr. Whitfield being compensated for his work?

Good question, Mr. Saturday. Despite getting three downvotes for asking another great question, NORWALK followed up with an expanded version of the same train of thought:

How much time are players allowed to spend on football related activities during the off season?  Is Whitfield being paid by tOSU or does he work for Braxton and family.  I'm certain our coaching staff and compliance office know what they're doing but I get a little concerned when I see things like this.

Following a storybook season capped by a bowl-less holiday for the Buckeyes, fans are understandably gunshy about any chance their leading weapon might be doing something that could run afoul of an over-eager NCAA Committee on Infractions (hey, they need something to distract them from the Oregon case, right?).

Most commenters on the thread agreed that Coach Meyer and Ohio State's compliance department must certainly be aware of Miller's work with Whitfield, and more importantly how the consultant was being compensated. That said, consider this: if Ohio State's own fans were asking very logical questions about Miller's business dealings, what are non-fans likely to think when they read about one of the nation's top QBs working with one of the nation's top QB mentors?

Think I'm being paranoid? Enter Johnny Football: Heisman-winning Texas A&M star Johnny Manziel apparently has a penchant for watching Texas' NBA teams from high-dollar courtside seats. Sparked by an otherwise insightful comment from TNT analyst Steve Kerr, a social media firestorm flared up over how, exactly, the 20-year-old Aggie standout scored seats that sold for as much as $1,250 apiece.

Following Kerr's comments, Manziel was inundated with calls, texts and Tweets about how he got the tickets, to which he promptly added fuel to the fire: "Bought myself a little birthday present tonight stop hating!"

As with Miller's hiring of Whitfield, asking questions about how an 20-year-old college student afforded courtside seats at two NBA games in the same week are perfectly logical  reactions. At 11W, many commenters decided that the questions were an example of Post Traumatic NCAA Disorder, and suggested that questioners should let it go, because Manziels' folks are oil barons or otherwise gainfully employed.

Bottom line? It doesn't matter if Manziel is independently wealthy or if Mark Cuban slid the tickets under Johnny Football's dorm room door. Because he is the Quarterback of the Moment, everything he does is under a microscope whether he likes it or not. While I hate to begrudge a kid the right to live a fun, well-adjusted lifestyle, it probably behooves a coach, parent or other mentor to counsel him that putting himself in this type of spotlight isn't going to attract him attention of the positive variety.

Just ask USA Today:

What, you didn't spend your 20th birthday hanging out with NBA stars on consecutive nights at two arenas more than 200 miles from each other? Then you were doing it wrong, my friend.

Doing it wrong indeed. Yahoo Sports, Ohio State's own personal hate-spewing anti-Buckeye media machine, put Manziel's "I bought it myself, dammit" in perspective:

That doesn't, however, explain how he also had seats to the Rockets-Sixers game on Wednesday night. Not only did Manziel go to the game, he also was invited into the Rockets' locker room after the game and showed James Harden how to strike the Heisman pose (and put it on Instagram for everyone to see).

Did Manziel do anything wrong? Who knows. Can Miller afford George Whitfield? Again, not for me to say. What I am saying is this: in the age of social media, every single action taken by big-time athletes is on full-display in real time, and open to every possible interpretation - and often misinterpretation. This adds an additional layer of challenge and, I'm guessing, frustration to coaching and compliance at the NCAA level.

Every Tweet, Facebook and Instagram post is a potential violation or admission of wrongdoing... Or at the very least an invitation for a visit from the NCAA heavy mob.

Without reopening the subject of compensating college athletes, I'd encourage you to read this and this, on the role of money, athletics and the cost of going to college.

Social media and really big issues...

While sites like Facebook and apps like Instagram may be the biggest, newest thorn in college athletes' sides, the tools are already playing a role in an unfolding, unfortunate, and unsavory story right in our back yard. As reported earlier this week, the Steubenville football rape case is getting stranger by the minute, thanks in no small part to social media. With reports from the New York Times (here and here) shedding light on what may have otherwise been a very quiet story in a small town, one has to consider how different this case might look absent its intersection with the internet.

On the one hand, we can posit that without the online attention, the case might indeed have been hushed up, covered up, and otherwise disappeared absent a full and fair hearing. On the other hand, one could argue because of the highly emotional nature of the allegations, because of the involvement of bloggers and Anonymous, and because high school kids are by nature unintelligent creatures, the case can not possibly get a fair hearing at this point, because heads must now roll regardless of actual guilt by any party involved.

Because of the emotional nature of the case, I'm not going to offer any opinion on the case, largely because I don't feel I have enough actual facts to formulate an opinion beyond the obvious: this is a sad, sad tale with lots and lots of blame to go around (parents, I'm talking to you). What I'm suggesting, however, is that we may never know what actually happened, because the comments and images shared and posted that evening are so objectionable that they potentially obfuscate an accurate assemblage of the facts of the case.

It goes without saying, but I don't at all envy the investigators and legal minds who have to dissect and debate this situation in the courts. This is a bad deal all the way around. Perhaps the sad reality is this: Varsity Blues wasn't just a football movie with a bunch of pretty actors, after all.