By: PETE THAMEL (NYTimes.com) — COLUMBUS, Ohio — When the text messages pop up in Ohio State Coach Thad Matta’s phone, they always bring a laugh but barely ever a response. They come from the former Ohio State guard J.J. Sullinger, who simply types, “You’re welcome.”

Sullinger deserves thanks for a recruiting tip that will long live in Ohio State lore. In 2006, he said to Matta, “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but you need to offer my brother a scholarship.”

Matta asked if Sullinger was talking about his middle brother, Julian, who ended up playing at Kent State.

“No,” Sullinger responded. “Jared.”

Matta was baffled. “Your big fat little brother?”

By the end of Jared Sullinger’s freshman year of high school, Matta had taken J..J.’s advice.

Sullinger went on to win the Naismith Award as the country’s top high school player and has emerged as perhaps the best player in the country.

Jared Sullinger’s averages of 17.5 points and 10.1 rebounds are a big reason No. 2 Ohio State has emerged as a favorite to win the national title despite losing the national player of the year Evan Turner to the N.B.A. draft. Credit an impressive lineage with molding the 6-foot-9, 280-pound Sullinger’s intangibles — crafty game, selfless attitude and low-post relentlessness. They have allowed him to mesh seamlessly with four returning starters on the Buckeyes (12-0).

With a father who coaches at two speeds — fast and faster — and two older brothers who were accomplished college players, Jared Sullinger was raised on a diet of fundamentals and knuckle sandwiches.

“When it came to basketball, no one ever took it easy on him,” his mother, Barbara, said.

The training began with footwork drills at age 2, as his father, Satch, threw practice post passes to his son at the foot of his bed and demanded he step with his inside foot. Satch Sullinger has coached basketball in and around Columbus since 1983 and believes so strongly in footwork that he claims to have bought a Pete Newell footwork video for $300 in 1984.

Satch laughs when people ask how Jared can be as comfortable driving to the hoop with his left hand as with his right. He chuckles because it has nothing to do with his hands.

“If you don’t do your footwork, your hands are unemployed,” said Satch, who now coaches five players with Division I offers at Northland High School……

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