John Groce, associate head coach to Thad Matta's men's basketball team, was announced Friday as the 16th head coach in Ohio University history.
With 14 years experience as either an assistant or associate head coach at the collegiate level Groce has put together a solid resume by leading his teams to a Final Four appearance, two Elite Eights and has made an appearance in postseason play a total of 13 times.
Groce has been previously lauded as the top assistant in the country by Rivals.com and Fox Sports, an assessment with which former boss Thad Matta agrees.
"John Groce deserves to be a Division I head coach," Matta said. "We're sad to see him leave our program. He's ready, and he's going to do a great job at Ohio University. He will be a terrific fit with a terrific program."
After his introduction by Ohio University Director of Athletics Jim Schaus, Groce expressed excitement about his new task.
"I am very grateful for the opportunity to be the head coach at Ohio University," Groce said. "We look forward to the transition and are very excited about the opportunity we have to positively impact the basketball program, the university and the Athens community at large."
Groce spent the last four seasons with Ohio State, the latter two as the associate head coach under Thad Matta. While with the Buckeyes, he helped the team reach 105 total victories, two outright Big Ten Conference regular season titles, back-to-back NCAA tournament titles and one appearance in the NCAA Championship game.
Groce won the 2006 recruiter of the year from Rivals.com after landing top recruits Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook. The following season he helped recruit one five-star prospect and two four-star prospects.
Matta was mum about the hiring process to replace Groce, but said Groce's personality was a great counter to his own in the forum of coaching.
"John is like my alter ego: He is more of a numbers guy and I am more of a people person," Matta said. "I think that combination helped make our team better."
Groce began his coaching career as an assistant in 1993 at his alma mater, Taylor University. He made the jump to Division I coaching as a member of the North Caroline State coaching staff from 1996 to 2000. In 2001, Groce joined Matta's staff at Butler and followed him to Xavier and then to OSU.
Bob Strickley can be reached at strickley.3@osu.edu.
2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Dude
posted 7/05/08 @ 1:36 PM EST
Should be back-to-back ncaa tournaments, not titles. big difference. How did that escape the editor? OSU's struggles in title games is pretty obvious enough to make that an obvious word choice issue. (Continued…)
Post a Comment