COLUMBUS, Ohio — Thad Matta opened his final news conference at Ohio State men's basketball coach in an unexpected place.
It wasn't the place, as in the practice gym with the prominent wall featuring all those reminders of when the Buckeyes were "B1G Conference Champions" under the longtime coach. No, he started with lyrics. Grateful Dead. "Truckin'." You know the verse.
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"Sometimes the lights all shining on me," Matta said. "Others time I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it's been."
He put an emphasis on long before fighting back tears shortly afterward.
It's fitting: Matta put the spotlight on the Ohio State program with a 13-year run that produced five regular-season Big Ten championships, four conference tournament titles and two Final Four appearances. He did that with while dealing with the chronic pain from four back surgeries since he was 15 years old. It occurred to Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith that it was time for a change after a conversation with Matta last Friday that it was time for that journey to end.
It's rooted in a familiar place, however, and it offers a clue as to where the Buckeyes might be headed next.
"Recruiting was a major part of that plan," Smith said of his initial meetings after the 2016-17 season, which ended with a first-round loss to last-place Rutgers in the Big Ten tournament. "We weren't winning the battles in recruiting that I thought we had a chance to win, so as we started talking about that on Friday ... the flow of the conversation took me to the reality."
It was time for a change. Smith is looking for a big-time recruiter as the next pitch man at Ohio State. That has worked out well for the football team since hiring Urban Meyer in 2012, and this is a school that has one of the top football-basketball combination schools in the country.
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That's how the Matta era started with two game-changers who helped form the "Thad Five," the class that took Ohio State to the 2007 national championship game.
"I've always told people this, the easiest recruiting I ever had here was two guys named Greg Oden and Mike Conley because they didn't want to be recruited. Great players did not want to be recruited. They looked at a situation and said, 'Can I get what I want out of them and give them what they want?' That's a credit to them."
Matta repeated that with a class built around Evan Turner before a class led by Jared Sullinger reached the Final Four again in 2011-12. The Buckeyes won 20 or more games in 12 straight seasons.
"We had a five-year stretch here that was probably as good as anybody in terms of college basketball," Matta said of that run. "I think the last thing I want to be remembered for is we always did it the right way."
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The recruiting, however, lagged toward the end. Matta fought through the nagging back pain against a landscape that has "changed drastically." Matta was up against that while trying, in his words, to "be serviceable" from a physical standpoint. Other schools took advantage through "negative recruiting."
D'Angelo Russell was the last draft pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, and Ohio State hasn't had anything close to him since. The 2015 recruiting class fell apart, the same class that saw top in-state player Luke Kennard choose Duke. The top seven players in the Class of 2016 went out of state, too. Matta's saving grace was supposed to be a class around incoming freshman Kaleb Wesson, who earned Ohio Mr. Basketball honors in 2017. Smith, however, clearly wants more after that string of 20-win seasons was broken.
"The next person we attract will have a major focus in Ohio," Smith said.
That next person will also have to live up to the high standard Matta set with a 337-123 record and .733 winning percentage. While the upcoming headlines will focus on missing out on Archie Miller, who left Dayton for Indiana, and perhaps both Xavier's Chris Mack and Cincinnati's Mick Cronin as potential replacements, this feels like Smith is looking for something different than the usual pipeline judging on how many times he mentioned that "recruiting is the life-blood of the program."
Don't be surprised if the Buckeyes make an unexpected hire like the one that uprooted the flow of the typical summers in Columbus.
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Matta gave all he had in that effort, and he had the weekend to think about that. The constant battles with Indiana, Michigan State and Wisconsin made him "numb" to the job. He was just starting to get feeling back. Matta even said, "Yeah, probably" when asked if he would still be the coach if he were healthy.
For now, Matta will go stay home in Columbus and help with the search for a replacement. Matta didn't finish the verse, however, that one that concludes that timeless Grateful Dead hit.
"Truckin', I'm a goin' home. Whoa baby, back where I belong/Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin' on."
Maybe he'll get back into coaching, but for now he'll focus on remembering that long, strange trip took him — to the place his family calls home in Columbus.
"I'll be honest with you," Matta said before closing. "Since this has happened I have done nothing but thought of the good times."
