Readers: Please pardon the early-week nature of this particular batch of Mailbox letters, as I have decided to retire to Florida for a few days of rest, relaxation and radiant sunshine — whoa, that’s a big plate of shrimp. Now where was I again? Oh, that’s right, I was about to mention that I’ll return next week with fully charged batteries.

Editor: Why does the Buckeye Nation embrace a coach like Thad Matta? Sure, he wins 20 games, but look at those small schools he plays at the beginning of the basketball season. He is not in the same class as Mike Krzyzewski, John Calipari, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams, and Tom Izzo is way ahead of him in the Big Ten.

Amazing that he plays only seven players and in the (Michigan State) game he didn’t know what to do. All he did was stare into space. On the other hand, Izzo called timeouts, and each time MSU came back and scored.

Don’t look for OSU to do good in the Big Ten tourney, and they sure won’t do good in the NCAA tourney. Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Kansas, North Carolina and Duke will tear them up.

I have noticed it since 1987 that any Buckeyes team cannot play against a team that is physical. It showed up against MSU and they will get it again the last game of the season in East Lansing. It’s amazing that Matta draws all that money and cannot make any changes in the basketball game to win.

Sure, he will win many games, but he will never win the big one that defines a great coach.

George Agnew, Columbus

George: Rick Pitino? Come on. Rick Pitino is an expensive, yet mostly empty, suit whose championship days are long past. Regarding Matta, those wins over small schools this year included Duke and Florida. Are they a Final Four team? Not if they lay eggs like the one eight days ago. But they can be.

Ray: This message goes out to Connie, Garen and Stephen from last Sunday’s Mailbox. This is the idiot Jack Boyer responding back. Did you three watch the Michigan State game? Who’s the idiot now?

When I said we were the worst shooting team two weeks ago, I wasn’t kidding. Memo to coach Matta: You have more McDonald’s All-Americans on your bench than McDonald’s has employees. I suggest you start using them.

If you think I have gotten over the losses to Tennessee and Kentucky the last two years, you’ve got another thing coming. So, Connie, Garen and Stephen — you guys like apples. How do you like them apples?

Jack Boyer, Hilliard

Jack: No doubt that one bad loss can leave a sour taste in the mouth. But I still think it’s too early to bury these Buckeyes as hopeless noncontenders.

Editor: All-American? I just got back from the Michigan State game, and the only All-American candidates were wearing green. Oh, Jared Sullinger certainly got a triple-double — points, rebounds and turnovers. He has to stop reading last year’s Dispatch clippings and start playing basketball.

Perhaps Matta should sit him, for apparently he is tired. Or perhaps Sullinger is looking for someone to talk to. I was amazed when, with OSU 10 points down, the “All-American” strutted by the ESPN people to complain about a non-call!

Sullinger should know when Ted Valentine is the ref that the game is not going to be about anyone but Valentine, (so) stop complaining, flopping and throwing up shots my 12-year-old would not even try. Play ball!

Bill Morris, Upper Arlington

Bill: There is a tendency, it seems, for Sullinger to try to do too much when the game gets tight — double-teams and physical play be damned. A calmer approach, with fewer theatrics, is in order, As for Ted Valentine, three cheers to Dan Dakich for calling him out last week.

Dispatch: Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press must not know anything about golf. Phil Mickelson did not trounce Tiger Woods. In fact, he didn’t play Woods — he played the Pebble Beach golf course and beat everyone who was entered to play the tournament.

Woods was not the only player who competed in the tournament, so the headline should have listed all of the players, not just Woods. Thanks, I feel better now.

John Fox, Columbus

John: Fergie knows plenty about golf, and he knows even more about what drives the sport’s popularity. That final-round rating of 5.1 — the tournament’s highest in 15 years and a 96 percent increase from last year — wasn’t based on Charlie Wi and Ken Duke being the final pairing.

Editor: Last night brought an end to a dynasty right here in central Ohio. One man has coached one college basketball team for 40 years — Otterbein’s Dick Reynolds.

Last night was his final regular-season game. The Ohio Athletic Conference’s all-time leader in wins, a national championship, several OAC titles and more than a few state and national coaching awards will be on the sidelines for the last time in the Rike Center.

In our lifetime, it is highly unlikely there will another Dick Reynolds. He never coached or taught at another college, living in Westerville for nearly his entire adult life. For the Otterbein community, this was to be a night of celebration for all Coach Reynolds did for the school — not just in basketball, but in all aspects of the institution.

Heath Brown, Lancaster

Heath: Happy trails, Coach Reynolds.

Mr. Stein: I was amused by the last item in (last Sunday’s) Mailbox, in which Jacob Dobres poked fun at the use of the word publically in the previous week’s column. I saw the same peculiar spelling in an article on MLB.com several months ago, and I was going to chime in on a blog that the word is publicly.

I quickly researched the spelling on the Internet, and I was taken aback when I discovered that publically is an acceptable alternate spelling of publicly. Therefore, no harm, no foul.

Richard Zaborsky, Dublin

Richard: Well, that may explain spell-check’s silence on the matter, but it doesn’t get me off the hook with The Dispatch’s style police. Around here, it’s publicly.

Write me at 34 S. 3rd St., Columbus, 43215, or e-mail sports@dispatch.com. Please include your hometown and telephone number, which will not be published.

Ray Stein is sports editor of The Dispatch.

rstein@dispatch.com