Cincinnati Basketball: 5 coaching replacements for Mick Cronin
By Joey Loose
5. Thad Matta (formerly Ohio State)
He’s been mentioned for nearly every big time coaching job since he left Ohio State in 2017, but Cincinnati might be the perfect landing spot for Matta. Most of his coaching experience has come in either Indiana or Ohio and this job puts him right in his recruiting footprint. He was mentioned as a candidate for UCLA before Cronin was hired, and taking Cronin’s old job is much better than a consolation prize.
Matta spent time as an assistant at places like Indiana State, Butler, and Miami-Ohio before getting the Butler head coaching job in 2000. He spent just one season with the Bulldogs before jumping to Xavier for three seasons. After leading the Musketeers to the Elite Eight in 2004, he was hired by Ohio State and spent 13 years with the Buckeyes. His run in Columbus included a pair of Final Fours, including a national title game loss to Florida in 2007.
In total, he boasts an impressive 439-154 record as a head coach, with 337 of those wins coming with the Buckeyes. The more impressive statistic is his 24 NCAA Tournament wins in just 13 trips, far better than Cronin fared in Cincinnati over the last decade. Matta is also very familiar with the Cincinnati area after his brief tenure with Xavier, putting him right where he needs to be geographically.
It’s almost humorous to consider Matta on the other side of the Cincinnati-Xavier rivalry, let alone the Cincinnati-Ohio State one. All in all, he’s a very talented head coach who would be a home run hire; but is he a legitimate candidate to become a head coach? He stepped down two years ago at Ohio State because of health issues that were impacting the program. If these issues aren’t a problem, then Matta to Cincinnati is a great plan; if not, then it could fall apart in a couple of years.