Something going on in Columbus? 4/5 2015 players transfer
With the announcement that AJ Harris is transferring, Ohio St has now lost four of the five players from its heralded 2015 basketball recruiting class - Austin Grandstaff, AJ Harris, Daniel Giddens, and Mickey Mitchell. While none made a particularly large impact this past year, there was obviously opportunity to contribute down the line.
I should probably be eating some crow here, as I was convinced that class was going to be really special. Guess not.
The team will be fine next year, with the majority of their playing time and points returning, but sure seems like there may be some internal issues. Also, Thad Matta has had some health issues. Maybe the grind of B1G bball, coupled with that, is starting to wear him a bit thin.
Land Grant Holy Land's take here: http://www.landgrantholyland.com/2016/3/29/11322174/ohio-state-basketba…
March 30th, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
Remember, Kentucky doesn't win the National Title every year.
I blame Columbus.
Losing Giddens and Mitchell hurt. Those guys were likely to be solid contributors down the road. If Matta was only losing Grandstaff and Harris, I doubt he'd lose too much sleep, but now he has serious depth issues. It'll probably help them land a couple decent grad transfers though.
March 30th, 2016 at 10:41 AM ^
If so, they're delusional. In 10 years, he's taken them to the NCAA finals, a final four, an elite eight, and a couple sweet sixteens. Pretty solid results. Plus, he's a beast of a recruiter and can likely sustain that sort of success.
think he can sustain it. I think the program is getting away from his a little bit and I don't see a quick uptick coming. I agree with you that OSU fans should probably adjust their expectations a little but he looks out of ideas to me. He has a very good track record but I think his teams are becomming less prepared and on some occassions, haphazardly coached.
I've always thought he was a really good recruiter and a solid defensive coach but his offense always seems lacking. For a while now players just never seem to develop any type of offensive skills under him. If they don't have a stud that can carry the offensive load, they struggle.
If we could only poach Jeff Boals who I think is the guy that is their defensive guru.
Disclaimer: I've never heard of crimsonquarry until it popped into my yahoo feed this morning.
IU writer and their fan base (comments section) are all over Beilein for Spike and Doyle electing to transfer. MGoBrian gains special mention in the comments section.
What a bunch of butthurt assholes.
March 30th, 2016 at 11:59 AM ^
Chatman for 3. lol
the level of stupidity in that blog post is amazing. They claim JB ran off Max last year because he did not have room, and then begrudingly corrected it. Then they claimed that JB ran off Spike this year when he is a 5th year with 2 bad hips. Maybe you could make an argument that Doyle was given a push out the door, but that in no way equals what Crean has done his entire career at IU. And it wasn't hard for Ricky to see the writing on the wall so it was at worst mutual, and likely more ricky's decision.
I was just at a tour of the Schottenstein Center with a group of kids yesterday. Should have asked our tour guide what was going on.
or is banging a co-ed ?
Grandstaff publicly called for more minutes and cited that as a reason for his mid-season transfer.
Mitchell only played once Tate got hurt.
Harris is behind Lyle forever, and it looks like Lyle is a three year player at best.
Giddens is the head scratcher and biggest loss, as he played a pretty even split with Trevor Thompson, and had a higher ceiling. But OSU has two bigs coming next year and Thompson isn't going anywhere, perhaps Giddens saw limited minutes on the horizon.
TL:dr, if any of the core guys bailed, I'd be worried. But the top 6 scorers all return, so while optically bad, I'm not sure if this is indicative of anything major.
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March 30th, 2016 at 10:21 AM ^
I get approximately zero (0) amounts of grief from the couple OSU fans I know during MBB season. They fill up their arena, I suppose, but from the outside their basketball program doesn't appear to have the same cultural hold that football does.*
*admittedly small sample size
March 30th, 2016 at 10:39 AM ^
a way-too-big arena intended to keep the NHL franchise from building their own arena.
It feels like OSU and UM are in pretty similar situations when it comes to basketball. There are a lot of people calling for the head coach to be fired, there are others saying "we can't fire him. I remember how shitty the program was before he arrived!" Then you have a lot of people in the middle saying that you don't necessarily want to fire anyone but the current product and the past few years are unacceptable.
As for the transfers, I guess it's good for OSU to be able to move on from guys who didn't particularly look like worldbeaters, but the timing really hurts. The 2016 class was one of the deepest Ohio high school recruit classes in recent memory and OSU missed out on the top 6 guys in the state because at the time they didn't have room to really pursue them.
Much like with Beilein, I think 2016-17 will be a defining season for Matta.
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Not from around these parts, are ya?
March 30th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^
All of the information I get on UM athletics comes directly from this site. I am sure the ones calling for Beilein to be fired are the outspoken minority, but they are out there.
March 30th, 2016 at 11:22 AM ^
I know the family of Micah Potter, an incoming big for them. They're confident he's going to be an early contributor, which may have some play in all this. It's always possible the staff is telling incoming players something different than current roster guys.
March 30th, 2016 at 10:24 AM ^
They decided to go to a school where they could get a decent college education.
March 30th, 2016 at 10:26 AM ^
It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they sucked for the next decade or so!
March 30th, 2016 at 12:35 PM ^
That's looking at possibly coming to OSU.
I know there was a thread that was deleted about Russell earlier, but who else thinks that D'Angelo Russell's biggest fan right now is Kyrie Irving?
It is crazy that guys are leaving, and if it is because of Matta's health it also says something about possible replacements/coaches on staff and their attachment to these players, since you tend to see kids stick around if they have a strong relationship with an assistant.