Ohio State's basketball accomplishments stack up pretty well for a "football school" when compared to the other universities at the Final Four.
Although it is known primarily as a football school, Ohio State has had great success in basketball, too, with two trips to the Final Four since 2007 and three straight trips to the Sweet 16.The NCAA Final Four only seems like the riddle: Which one of these is not like the others?
Kansas, Kentucky and Louisville are celebrated "basketball schools" that also field football teams.
Nationally, Ohio State is known as a "football school" with a basketball team. But the label discounts an outstanding run for Buckeye men's basketball over the last decade: more than 25 wins per year, two Final Four appearances since 2007 and a rich legacy comparable to the other three schools in New Orleans this weekend.
For some, lost in the love of Buckeye football is how Ohio State has excelled in both sports, and just how rare and difficult that is.
"There's probably only a handful of schools in the country that have the resources, tradition," said Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer, "and this is certainly one of them."
In fact, when it comes to average winning percentage in football and men's basketball over the last 10 years, only Texas can top Ohio State. And if Ohio State had not been forced to vacate 12 football wins in 2010 for NCAA violations, the Buckeyes would be No. 1.
Among the other Final Four schools, Louisville ranks 11th in both sports combined, Kansas 17th and Kentucky 28th.
"For fans, hopefully people don't say we're a football school -- just a football school," said Ohio State sophomore forward Jared Sullinger. "Now they can switch that and say we're a basketball school and football school, but I probably doubt that would happen."
Reputation rules
Sullinger's probably right: It's not easy for a basketball program to escape the shadow of a championship-caliber football program.
Dale Brown, former basketball coach at football powerhouse Louisiana State, had to scratch and claw for his program to earn some respect, much less a share of the spotlight, on his own campus.
Brown recalled how former Tigers basketball great Joe Dean warned him when he took the job in 1972 what a football-crazy school and state it was. Dean told him, "To show you how uninterested in basketball they are, don't be surprised if you have to sweep the floor, sing the National Anthem and maybe even keep score sometimes."
Brown thought that had to be an exaggeration, but when he walked into the gym for the first day of practice in Baton Rouge, the glass backboards and court were filthy.
"I had to get the managers, the trainers, the assistant coaches and myself, we actually swept the floor, lowered the baskets and used Windex and cleaned them ourselves," he said.
While Brown said the advantage in those early years was "literally no pressure," because basketball was such a non-factor, he remembered how his team had to ride an old, noisy yellow school bus with no heat to the airport for road games. That was until one Friday night, when he noticed a line of sleek new buses waiting outside the athletic complex. He found out they were there to take the football team to the movies downtown.
Luckily, Brown said, the athletic director listened and responded to his gripes.
The Ohio State basketball team doesn't travel in rickety buses or have to scrub down its gym. But the Buckeyes, who practice and play in first-rate facilities, still had to wait for improvements that had been talked about since 2007.
The basketball locker rooms are finally being upgraded, and a second practice court and strength-and-conditioning area are being added to the Schottenstein Center. The work is being done in phases because fundraising has taken longer than expected -- something that would be hard to imagine for the Buckeye football program.
A two-way street
But playing sidekick to a powerhouse can also present an opportunity.
"We embraced it," said former Michigan basketball coach Steve Fisher, now coaching San Diego State. "We used every ounce of football to recruit, just like I'm sure Thad Matta and others have done at Ohio State. You take young guys into that atmosphere and it sells. It's appealing."
And so true. On most fall Saturdays at Ohio Stadium, Matta can be spotted during pregame warm-ups schmoozing groups of tall high school boys in basketball varsity jackets and their parents.
"I've always said there is no greater feeling than being on the field when 105,000 people are cheering for the Buckeyes to come out and you've got recruits with you," Matta said. "That is the ultimate right there."
Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt, a Cleveland Heights native and former Cleveland State assistant, used the same mesmerizing aura of big-time college football as a powerful basketball recruiting tool.
As head coach at Clemson, he had recruits attend a football game at the stadium with the intimidating nickname, "Death Valley." He made sure they watched the football players make their traditional run down the hill to the Memorial Stadium field and rub the storied "Howard's Rock."
"It sure didn't hurt to be at 'Death Valley' for an 85-degree Saturday football game with the balloons going up and everybody rubbing the rock," he said. "Anytime you can show significant love of institution and passion, young and old, it sends a message that needs no introduction."
Michigan found that advantage can work in reverse, too.
After the Wolverines won the national basketball championship in 1989 and lost back-to-back championships in 1992 and '93, visiting football recruits approached the "Fab Five" -- Michigan's heralded starters -- like rock stars.
"Every one of them wanted to meet our players and watch practice," Fisher said. "And the football people were coming to us saying, 'Will you help us recruit?' "
At LSU, it took a stretch of six straight losing football seasons, several Southeastern Conference basketball championships and two Elite Eight and two Final Four appearances in the 1980s, for basketball to finally get some attention.
"Slowly," Brown said, "we etched away at the boulder that we had, but it wasn't easy -- and it's not easy, even when you win."
Shyatt experienced that as an assistant coach at Florida. The Gators won four SEC tournaments or regular-season titles, reached the Elite Eight in 2011 and were national champions in 2006 and 2007 -- only the seventh team to do so.
None of that mattered to a recruit who rejected Florida for Kentucky because he wanted to play at a "basketball school." And that was just after Florida had won the NCAA Tournament two straight years.
"It was a bit laughable at the time," Shyatt said. "We fought the same perception, even winning back-to-back championships. But the truth is, you can have a love affair with both."
Plain Dealer reporter Doug Lesmerises and data analysis editor Rich Exner contributed to this story.
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2012/03/post_94.html
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