COLUMBUS, OHIO - As this basketball season moved through November and into December, the team at Ohio State was a hostage of memories. "Our expectations were high," senior point guard Jamar Butler recalls. "Going to the national championship game last year, to get beat, the expectations are high. That's what we want to get back to."
That was his team's mindset, even though the cast around him was so different from the one that had played for the title last spring. Gone were the resplendent talents of Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr., replaced by acclaimed freshmen who were skilled, yet in need of seasoning.
Butler and those around him kept comparing themselves to what their predecessors had been, and their frustration grew.
They followed a loss to Butler, their third of the season, with a tepid performance in a victory over Coppin State, and coach Thad Matta clearly recognized that a malaise had infected his team.
"It was good days, bad days," Matta said. "I just wanted them to [see], this is who we are."
Were they feeling pressure to match last year's team?
"No one ever said it," he said, "but I think they were looking and saying, 'Hey, they only lost four games last year and we've already lost three.' I didn't hear it. It was more of a feel. That's why I was searching for a way to kind of ease the pain a little bit.
"I've got all these books in my office at home. ... So I said, 'Let's see if I can crawl inside their minds a little bit.' This is one of my favorite mind books, and the first page I opened it up to, that was the first thing I saw."
The book was Dan Millman's "The Inner Athlete," and what Matta saw was a passage he soon shared with his team. "Unrealistic expectations breed frustrated athletes. Normal expectations breed patience."
"The pressures are only for us to get better every day. That was kind of my message to them," Matta said.
Florida coach Billy Donovan has his own take on expectations, the Gators having won two NCAA titles before enduring personnel losses every bit as deep as Ohio State's.
"You get guys to understand the expectation is what you can give to the team," he said.
That message, which echoes Matta's, finally appears to have sunk in with the Buckeyes, who have put up three impressive victories since their struggle against Coppin State. Earlier, Butler was clearly trying to do too much, and just as clearly was not confident in the new players around him. Now he is more settled and content to be their choreographer.
Earlier, sophomore swingman David Lighty was uncertain and reluctant to tutor the youngsters around him. Now, Matta said: "He's a lot more of who David is, I'd say. We obviously need him not only playing hard, but his vocal side. I said to him the other day, 'You're back.' He's leading practice and that sort of stuff."
The 7-foot freshman Kosta Koufos, a European-style big man, is more composed. "Coach Matta told me ... I had to be more relaxed and stay focused and play within myself," he said.
Another freshman, Evan Turner, is now a starter, and off the bench comes freshman Jon Diebler, the Buckeyes' best three-point shooter.
Together they have accepted they must live in the present and create their own standards.
Said Lighty: "We have to bring this team together with the guys we have this year and get back to the level of basketball we got to last year."
