NEWARK, N.J. - The No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes are the favorites here this weekend and, potentially, next weekend as well.
And though the Buckeyes know they're still crashing somebody else's party, they feel they belong. And that they'll be back.
Maybe this group specifically won't be back -- the Buckeyes start three seniors and have two underclassmen facing big decisions regarding the NBA -- but in seven years at Ohio State, Thad Matta has built a program that looks and plays like it belongs with college basketball's big boys.
Under Matta, the Buckeyes have also dealt with many of the same realities and consistently recruited from the same talent pool as college basketball's marquee programs. This weekend, Ohio State might get a chance to deal with two of them on the Prudential Center floor.
"That's what we're here for," Ohio State freshman Jared Sullinger said. "This is the next stop on our mission to win the national championship."
Ohio State-Kentucky on Friday night is arguably the biggest of the eight Sweet 16 games nationwide. It's an intriguing matchup not just for its battle of Kentucky's talented freshmen vs. Ohio State's talented freshmen and savvy upperclassmen, but for a clash of two programs with different roots, different approaches and bunches of talent. The winner advances to Sunday and a date with the North Carolina-Marquette winner.
This East Regional has a Final Four-like quality; it's simply the nature of college basketball these days that so many of the marquee players are freshmen. Guys go to Kentucky so they can play immediately and play on this stage. Guys go to North Carolina so they can play on this stage.
If Ohio State, which comes into the weekend at 34-2, can be the team standing and celebrating after booking its ticket to Houston here this weekend, the Buckeyes have a chance to place themselves at least in the discussion, and maybe in the thick of it, of the nation's top programs. Guys going to Ohio State to play big-time basketball games? It's happening.
During the past five seasons, no coach in college basketball has more wins than John Calipari's 199 at Memphis and Kentucky. Matta is fifth during that time with 170. In between are Bill Self at Kansas (190), Mike Krzyzewski at Duke (179) and Roy Williams at North Carolina (172). Pretty good company.
Way back in 2007, when Ohio State forward David Lighty was a true freshman, he played in regular-season games vs. Florida and North Carolina. That Buckeyes team beat Calipari's Memphis team in the regional finals, beat a Jeff Green-led Georgetown team in the Final Four and hung with Florida for most of the evening before losing in the championship game.
Lighty has now won 129 games and two more Big Ten championships in a Buckeye uniform. He saw three classmates (Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook) leave as one-and-done freshmen after the '07 season, and Matta also lost big men Kosta Koufos and B.J. Mullens to the NBA after just one season in subsequent years. Last year's National Player of the Year, Evan Turner, gave up his final season and was selected No. 2 overall last June after leading the Buckeyes to the Sweet 16 last year.
Enter Sullinger, and fearless point guard Aaron Craft, and here the Buckeyes find themselves on the verge of surpassing last year's team and chasing the ultimate goal. The Buckeyes have played for the national title five times in school history, but there was a pretty significant gap between their appearances in 1962 and 2007.
"Ohio State has always had a great tradition," Lighty said. "And it's something we're building on now. Hopefully you'll see name our names hanging on those banners like some of the names you see now.
"If you look at the things we've done (since '07) and the players we have, we belong in any discussion about the best teams in the country. We've progressed and progressed and this coaching staff has great recruiters. They're great people. They have a lot to sell and they genuinely care."
Building this Ohio State team took some of that great recruiting -- and also a little bit of luck, things like Lighty's injuries granting him a fifth year, Lighty staying healthy enough to maximize it, Craft de-committing from Tennessee and a prodigious talent like Sullinger growing up just a few miles from campus and idolizing an older brother who played for Matta when he first took over the program. That the top six players are all from Ohio, even though they represent five different high school graduating classes, certainly helps the chemistry and sense of team.
But it's taken skill, too. Both Lighty and William Buford, that other possible NBA-leaper besides Sullinger, can play and guard multiple positions. Now that Jimmer Fredette and BYU have been eliminated, Jon Diebler is unquestionably the NCAA tournament's rangiest and most dangerous 3-point bomber. Those guys often get set up by Craft, who had 15 assists in last weekend's rout of George Mason, and Sullinger, who's an excellent passer out of double teams on the block.
"I've watched a ton of tape on Ohio State," Calipari said. "There are times I watch the tape and I go, 'Oh my goodness.' They're really skilled. They have great strength. They have size, shooters. They're really a terrific basketball team."
Calipari has terrific players, too, and his best two are freshmen Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones. After losing a record four freshmen to the first round of the NBA draft last year, he's restocked with guys who can play with anybody, but haven't played on this stage before. Four of Ohio State's top six players played in the Sweet 16 last year, and Lighty isn't the only one thinking about banners.
"At Ohio State it goes back to (John) Havlicek and (Jerry) Lucas," Diebler said. "We only have one national championship, but even more recently like Jim Jackson and Michael Redd and (the '07 team), we've had great players in this program."
Buford said Matta recruits "the top players in the country, guys that put us on the map. We have great support and great people around us every day."
The long-term goal, obviously, is to keep them coming. Ohio State went from 1971 to 1992 without winning a Big Ten title, then the drought again went until 2006.
The game has changed, the stakes have changed, and now the Buckeyes not only want to beat teams like Kentucky (seven national championships) and North Carolina (six titles and a record 24 Sweet 16 appearances since 1975), but beat them consistently.
On his radio show earlier this week, Calipari made the comment that many times opponents don't want to beat Kentucky as much as they want to be Kentucky. Ohio State would prefer the former, but the end result could include a little of both.
