BASKETBALL Xavier's Matta is new OSU coach

Rice's Willis Wilson and Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings were interviewed.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The search lasted 29 days. Thad Matta's turnaround took a week.
Seven days after declaring he had no interest in leaving Xavier for the vacant Ohio State basketball coaching job, Matta accepted the position on Wednesday.
His change of heart happened after a conversation Tuesday with Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger.
"As of last night, I was not going to go to Ohio State," Matta told Cincinnati television station WCPO on Wednesday. "I spoke with Mr. Geiger late last night and through our conversation decided to go up there today. And 6:30 tonight is basically when I accepted the job."
The call
Xavier athletic director Dawn Rogers confirmed Matta's hiring in an e-mail to The Associated Press shortly after she received a call from him Wednesday.
"I always had the uneasy feeling that Thad might be the next Ohio State coach," Rogers said at a news conference. "Ultimately he did what he needed to do to be where he wanted to be as a coach."
Ohio State sports information director Steve Snapp said the school would hold a news conference Friday to formally introduce Matta.
Geiger said it wasn't easy for Matta to leave Xavier.
"I talked with him in person and on the phone several times. I don't know [that] he was always interested in the job. He has very strong feelings about Xavier, and it was difficult for him," Geiger told The Columbus Dispatch.
Matta, who will turn 37 on Sunday, interviewed with Geiger, members of the search committee and Ohio State president Karen Holbrook on Wednesday. He was offered the job soon after the search committee met for 45 minutes at Ohio Stadium a few hours later.
Matta, who took Xavier to the NCAA tournament's regional finals in March, was one of three coaches interviewed on campus this week.
The others were Rice's Willis Wilson and Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings.
The interim coach
Interim head coach Rick Boyages was to be interviewed but apparently did not meet with the search committee.
The search committee -- never formally identified by Geiger -- was composed primarily of former Ohio State players and current team captain Terence Dials of Boardman.
Ohio State fired coach Jim O'Brien after seven years on June 8, six weeks after he admitted to Geiger that he had paid a recruit $6,000 in 1999.
NCAA and Ohio State investigators also are looking into allegations by a Columbus woman that she gave thousands of dollars to former Buckeyes player Boban Savovic and paid his bills and did his homework for two years.
In three years as the Musketeers' head coach, Matta's teams had a record of 78-23. He was 24-8 in his only season as head coach at his alma mater, Butler.
Had long contract
Matta was thought to be one of the favorites for the Buckeyes job -- which pays around $1.2 million a year -- from the beginning. Ohio State asked Rogers two weeks ago for permission to talk to Matta, whose contract at Xavier ran through the 2012-13 season.
Asked then whether he was interested in the job, he said no.
"I'm not a candidate. It's that plain and that simple," Matta told The Cincinnati Enquirer on June 29.
Within the last week, however, there was a major shift in attitude.
"I'm a Midwest guy, I grew up in the Big Ten and think having the opportunity to get what I conceive is the best job in the Big Ten, I feel very fortunate at that," Matta told WCPO on Wednesday.