Matta has few vets for season

At media day, the coach acknowledged that he’ll have more freshmen than anything else.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Here is the Ohio State men’s basketball team in a nutshell: no seniors, missing its top three scorers, but lots of promise, lots of possibilities.

For the third year in a row, coach Thad Matta will be overseeing a Buckeyes team that has more newcomers than veterans, more freshmen than anything else, more questions than answers.

“I really like this team,” Matta said Monday during the team’s media day. “But there are so many unknowns. We have to get into it and see what happens and how things shake out. There are some pieces here.”

The first time Matta had to rebuild with youth was two years ago, when freshmen Greg Oden, Michael Conley and Daequan Cook led the Buckeyes to the national championship game where they lost to Florida. Then all three left early for the NBA.

A year ago, with the trio and several other players gone, Matta built a team around senior Jamar Butler and freshman 7-foot post player Kosta Koufos and a few other young, interchangeable parts. They ended up going 24-13, missing out on an NCAA tournament berth but going on to win the National Invitation Tournament.

Now Butler and two other frontline players — Othello Hunter and Matt Terwilliger — have graduated. Koufos jumped to the pros (Utah Jazz). And Matta is left with eight new faces, seven of them freshmen and sophomores. Only one scholarship recruit (David Lighty) was around even for that NCAA title game.

“I guess you could say with so many people leaving my freshman year and then so many people leaving last year and then so many new people coming in this year, it is kind of like three different teams,” said Lighty, the elder statesman of the team with just two years on campus.

Matta, like just about everyone else, doesn’t have any idea what to expect.

“There are a lot of new, young guys with a lack of experience,” he said. “It’s like I told a group of freshmen the other day: ‘I don’t have a drill ... we can dedicate to getting you experience. You’re going to have to go through the wars.’ ”

Give the Buckeyes this much, they do have talented personnel on paper.

The roster includes two McDonald’s All-Americans in Ohio Mr. Basketball William Buford, 6-foot-5 from Toledo, and 7-0 post player B.J. Mullens from suburban Columbus. Several scouting services tabbed Mullens — who is an inch taller than Oden was as an incoming freshman — as the nation’s top recruit among big men.

The Buckeyes also will enlist the help of recruits Anthony Crater (Flint, Mich.) and Walter Offutt (Indianapolis). Matta also signed a pair of junior-college transfers, Jeremie Simmons (Chicago) and Nikola Kecman, a sophomore from Belgrade, Serbia. Kecman is awaiting word from the NCAA regarding his eligibility after he reportedly played for a club team in his homeland which may have included professionals.

The veterans include three juniors: Lighty, a 6-5 defensive specialist, 6-9 former Vanderbilt transfer Kyle Madsen, and holdover point guard P.J. Hill.