Ohio State turned a preseason exhibition into a homecoming on Sunday afternoon, honoring former head coach Thad Matta at halftime of the Buckeyes’ 82-73 win over Butler at the Schottenstein Center and sharing a revelation that moved the Columbus crowd more than anything that happened on the court.
Matta, the winningest coach in program history, coached Ohio State from 2004 to 2017 and compiled a 337-123 record in scarlet and gray. He later returned to Butler, where he had also coached from 2000-01, for a second stint from 2022 until retiring earlier this year, which made Sunday’s exhibition against the Bulldogs the natural moment for Ohio State to bring him back for an on-court recognition.
Speaking to the crowd during the ceremony, Matta described his Ohio State tenure as “13 of the greatest years of my life” and pointed to the fans as the source of the program’s power. “It’s funny, when you leave a place like Ohio State and you’re trying to explain it to people that aren’t familiar with Ohio State, just the power and the magnitude of this university, and it starts with the fans, and what you guys do for this program,” he said.
The emotional peak of the afternoon came when Matta revealed that JJ Sullinger, a member of his first Ohio State teams, recently donated a kidney to former teammate Terence Dials. Matta called it “maybe the greatest thing that I’ve ever seen in my coaching career” and said it captured what coaching is about — a bond between teammates that outlasted their playing careers by two decades.
Sullinger and Dials played together on Matta’s first two Ohio State squads in the mid-2000s, teams that laid the foundation for a run that included two Final Fours and five Big Ten regular-season championships. Their story gave Sunday’s ceremony a weight beyond nostalgia, connecting the program’s past directly to a present-day act of generosity between two of its own.
The game itself closed out Ohio State’s exhibition schedule. Sophomore forward Amare Bynum led the Buckeyes with 23 points and six rebounds against Butler, and guard John Mobley Jr. added 17 points before leaving late with a rolled ankle that he said afterward was minor. Butler is now coached by Ronald Nored, with former Buckeye Jon Diebler — brother of Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler — on the Bulldogs’ staff.
Ohio State opens the regular season on November 2 at BYU in Salt Lake City. The Buckeyes will carry Sunday’s reminder with them: in Columbus, the program Matta built is still measured as much by what its players do for each other as by the banners in the rafters.
Photo: JonRidinger, CC BY-SA