Shock felt by Buckeye players

Interim coach Rick Boyages will be considered for a permanent position.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Ohio State basketball captain Terence Dials said coach Jim O'Brien offered no apologies and no regrets when he told the team on Tuesday that he was being fired for giving $6,000 to a recruit five years earlier.
"He just told us the situation and what was going to happen with him and our program," Dials, a Boardman High graduate, said Wednesday. "He let us know he wanted us to keep going forward."
That may be hard to do in the aftermath of O'Brien's abrupt dismissal.
Shocked
Recruits Matt Terwilliger and Jamar Butler spent Tuesday attending freshman orientation at Ohio State. They were on their way back home when they heard the news that the man who brought them to campus would never be their coach.
"I was just in shock," said Terwilliger, a 6-foot-9 senior from Troy who was second-team All-Ohio last season. "It just came out of nowhere. He was one of the best people I met. He was like a father figure."
Terwilliger was part of a recruiting class that was supposed to turn things around after the Buckeyes fell into discord and selfish play last season while going 14-16.
The gem of the class is Butler, Ohio's Associated Press Mr. Basketball, a 6-2 point guard from Lima Shawnee. His family met with assistant coach Monte Mathis during orientation but didn't see O'Brien and had no idea anything was wrong.
Butler is planning to start school this summer.
"Right now, he's still going to Ohio State," his father, Mel, said Wednesday. "He's pretty tore up about it. It was like someone had died around here yesterday."
The players already on campus felt the same way. After O'Brien told them he was being dismissed, Dials said, "The room got real quiet."
Stepping in
Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger said interim coach Rick Boyages would be contacting each of the Buckeyes' players and recruits to answer their questions. That may be difficult, since Boyages has a few of his own.
Boyages gave up the head coaching job at William & amp; Mary to return to Ohio State a year ago. Even as he was being asked by O'Brien to come back to Ohio State, where he had earlier served as an assistant for three years, O'Brien was aware that his payment to the recruit might someday arise to bite him.
Boyages said he did not feel betrayed by what he called the "thunderbolt" that hit the team Tuesday.
"I have a varying amount of opinions," he said. "I need to think about it. I'm not at all bitter."
Boyages has been told by Geiger that he will be considered for the vacant head coaching position. He wasted no time in separating himself from O'Brien's messy legacy.
"I had no knowledge of any of this," Boyages said.
Staying a Buckeye
Dials said all of Ohio State's current players said they would return to play for the new coach. The Buckeyes return five of their top six scorers.
Terwilliger said he has no intention of looking elsewhere.
"I'm still committed," he said. "I'm not having second thoughts."
Terwilliger said he talked with O'Brien on the phone Tuesday night.
"He told me that even if he was not there, Ohio State was the place for me," Terwilliger said.
The other two members of the recruiting class are Je'Kel Foster of Chipola College in Florida and Jermyl Jackson-Wilson of Milwaukee.
"It's a difficult time," Boyages said. "I think I'm up to the task. The kids have been fantastic. The reason for me to be here is to say to everybody, 'We'll be fine.' "