Thad Matta has had plenty of opportunities to coax players out of slumps or past poor performances this season.
When Keita Bates-Diop went scoreless in a road loss at Purdue, Matta sat him down in a meeting and challenged him to be more aggressive. When JaQuan Lyle put together consecutive sub-par performances, he was taken out of the starting lineup until he forced his way back in.
But with Marc Loving, Matta did something different during the past few days. After Loving went scoreless for the first time all season and shuffled through a season-low 16 minutes in Saturday’s win at Rutgers, Matta didn’t give him a lecture and he didn’t pull him from the lineup.