On ESPN Radio this morning, ESPN basketball analyst Bill Walton bashed Ohio State coach Thad Matta, saying Matta had access to one of the most talented big men the game has ever seen -- Greg Oden -- and that he let that talent go to waste."I'm seeing Oden out there sort of standing around," Walton said. "You win in basketball when you attack."
Walton added that he was "wholly disappointed" that Matta often ran a slow-down offense and a zone defense, which Walton said did not adequately use Oden's skills. Walton called Oden "the most under-utilized talent that I have ever seen in the college ranks."
Walton knows far more than I do about how to use a talented big man, but I have to disagree with him here. Oden was great in the tournament except when he got into foul trouble. If Matta had told Oden to play a more aggressive game, wouldn't he have been more likely to foul out?
On the other hand, I like the fact that Walton isn't shy about expressing his opinions. I think too many analysts are timid when it comes to questioning coaches' strategic decisions. No one can say that about Walton.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-06-2007 @ 10:38AM
John said...
Walton=====Moron
Thad Matta had to coach two different teams this year- 1) without Oden for the first seven games and 2) with Oden (without any preseason practice) for the rest of the season. Thad lost 4 starters from a B10 champion and two freshman led this team. Yet with all that he won 22 straight and only lost 4 games (2 to the no. 1 defending NC team with all their starters back) and the other two to top 10 teams on the road.
Some also don't seem to "get" that Oden played with one hand all year and was out of shape because of no offseason conditioning and constant foul trouble. Oden could not even catch the ball in the post effectively most of the year. In many ways, Thad protected Greg. At the end of the season we started to see Greg's potential. If he stays next year then we will see a dominant, player of the year in CBB.
By the way, when Big Bill was playing he started as a sophmore after a year of learning the system and maturing.
When was the last time we had a dominant freshman center in the 4 year era? Pervis Ellison? Pat Ewing or Akeem weren't dominant. Guess John Thompson can't coach either?
Please give it up Bill. Thad did a tremedous job this season and doesn't deserve to hear 2nd guessing from someone who probably first saw tOSU play at the final four this year.
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4-06-2007 @ 10:51AM
scott said...
Walton--John
Yeah, Bill started as a sophmore after setting out a year. Back then freshmen were not elgible. You only got three years.
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4-06-2007 @ 1:15PM
gb said...
Bill Walton's comments might be a knee jerk reaction to what happened in this year's NCAA championship game between ohio and florida, where Oden, though having a dominant game, did not see the ball as often as he maybe should have in the second half (given the entire frontline of florida was in foul trouble). I'm not sure what ohio's real game plan was, but I believe their guards abandoned oden by hoisting too many ill-advised threes. I think Oden had a remarkable year all things considered. To the author, being aggressive with one's game doesn't necessarily mean a higher propensity to foul out. Take Wilt Chamberlain who never fouled out in 1045 games but obviously played an aggressive, physical game, scoring easy baskets because his team ran the court and he along with them.
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4-07-2007 @ 10:47AM
Jack said...
Walton is obviously judging Oden and Thad based on the two final four games. First of all, OSU didn't play a zone all year until the second time they played Wisconsin, when it had become blatantly obvious that the "pack it in" strategy absolutely befuddles the Badgers. OSU didn't play zone again until Oden started getting hilariously ticky-tack fouls called on him all throughout the NCAA tournament (they deployed it sparingly against Tennessee, then spent a lot of time in it against Memphis, because Memphis's offense was entirely based on driving to the basket). They played zone a lot of the first half against Georgetown's Princetonesque offense - more due to the Buckeyes' "who the hell is gonna guard Jeff Green?" quandary than anything else - and then when the Hoyas started hitting 3s early in the second half, they spent the rest of the game in a man-to-man.
I have just documented for you every single time OSU played a zone defense this year.
As for the "slow-down offense," before Oden joined the team, OSU was one of the fastest teams in the country. Once Big Ten play started, they slowed down because A.) their best player was out of game shape, and B.) the rest of the Big Ten - and I mean EVERY OTHER TEAM - played at a ludicrously slow pace.
As for Oden needing to get the ball more against Florida, well, that's tricky because the Gators shot so well that OSU was down by 8-12 most of the game. They needed to hit perimeter shots to get back into it. But hey, YMMV.
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4-25-2007 @ 12:37AM
englishdegreeman said...
Well, Matta did get Oden to the national championship game.
On the other hand, in the NCAA title game, I think Ohio State should have gone to Oden every single possession from the beginning of the game, like North Carolina did with James Worthy back in the 1980's against Georgetown. Ohio State should have gone to Oden from the opening tap: he was the one chance that they had in this game. The first 12 or so possessions, Oden should have gotten the ball and shot or gotten fouled.
Instead, they waited too late to start going to him.
By then the game was out of reach.
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