Best basketball coaches at football first schools

Jan 14, 2014, 6:33 AM

I saw this article on Thad Motta - it was talking about how their basketball team had a key game that was overshadowed by the Orange Bowl.

Which makes Matta both the absolute right man for the Ohio State job and an anomaly among his peers.

On Tuesday night, the No. 2 and undefeated Buckeyes meet No. 5 and one-loss Michigan State in an early test of Big Ten supremacy.

On Friday night, the No. 7 and one-loss football Buckeyes faced No. 12 and two-loss Clemson in an otherwise meaningless Orange Bowl.

Thad Matta
Jamie Sabau/Getty ImagesThad Matta has Ohio State 15-0 and ready for a showdown with Michigan State on Tuesday.

Guess which one people cared about more?

"Football is front and center, strong and heavy," athletic director Gene Smith said. "You don't want to battle that by having a persona that is bigger than that. That's just reality. You don't try and fight it. You embrace it."

Which Matta does, happily and contentedly from behind the scenes. He is not interested in beating Urban Meyer in a popularity contest. He is interested in beating Tom Izzo in the Big Ten and everyone else for a national title.

It is not that he knows his place.

It is that he knows this place.

On many a campus, basketball coaches bristle at the notion that they are working at a football school, the tag somehow implying their programs are second-class citizens. (No doubt, in some places they are.)

Matta could not care less about what others think about Ohio State. He knows the reality. The hoops Buckeyes might be second fiddle during football season, but they are not second-class.

Matta flies on a private plane, just like Meyer does. The team charters. The assistants are compensated well. There is a freshly renovated practice facility for the basketball team and, per Matta's request, the Schottenstein Center has been reconfigured. The deep-pocketed season-ticket holders were relocated three years ago from their courtside seats to make way for the students and give an otherwise bland entertainment center a basketball arena feel.

"We treat our players well," Matta said. "The environment we create, they're taken care of. That's what I care about. I care about our guys. It's not about me."

http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/page/matta140106/ohio-state-thad-matta-quietly-goes-business

It got me thinking.
1)Who are the best coaches at football first schools? Motta has to be at the top.
2) When will a basketball coach at Clemson have enough sway to get the seating reconfigured?

It's an art, I think, to successfully recruit at Clemson - we're a school that loves sports vs. an IU where basketball is all there is. But if there's a template for success, it's Motta and Ohio State.

Who else faces this, and who has lasting success in both sports? Who has success with their current coach? What else can a school like Clemson do to make sure our brand is that students will camp out for both football and basketball (which they have), etc.

ACC - FSU, Clemson, VT
SEC - AL, AU, GA, UF, TN, LSU, MS, MSU, Texas A&M, SC
B1G - OSU, PSU, Nebraska, Michigan
Big12 -(8, whatever are they called now) - Texas, OK
Pac10 - USC, Oregon
Ind - Notre Dame

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Best basketball coaches at football first schools

Got to put Billy Donovan for Florida too...

Barnes is probably the anti-Matta

Re: Best basketball coaches at football first schools

Thanks

I sit in a court side seat in Littlejohn, because

Is there a comparison of best bball years at fb schools

Ranking the coaches from that list, I'd go

7) Montgomery, Stanford(not on list)***

The big ten schools are interesting

Clemson is bigger football

Duke ;-)***

1. Matta 2. Billy Donovan (Fla.) 3. John Beilein (Michigan)

Forgot Leonard Hamilton. He would be on that list as well.***

Mad props to whats his name at U of Wisconsin***

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