Thad Matta seems to have turned his recruiting focus to Ohio, having offered scholarships to the state's top five basketball recruits in the 2018 class, according to 247Sports. One of the recruits, 6-foot-5 forward Justin Ahrens of Versailles, said the Ohio State coach told him that he is looking more at Ohio players in his recruiting.

Thad Matta seems to have turned his recruiting focus to Ohio, having offered scholarships to the state's top five basketball recruits in the 2018 class, according to 247Sports. One of the recruits, 6-foot-5 forward Justin Ahrens of Versailles, said the Ohio State coach told him that he is looking more at Ohio players in his recruiting.

It�s a little early to know how it will play out, but Matta deserves credit for getting in early on all of them.

Upper Arlington shooting guard Dane Goodwin, No. 3 in the state and No. 94 nationally, according to 247, already is committed to OSU, and top-ranked Ohioan Darius Bazley (No. 47 nationally), a 6-7 forward at Finneytown, has been offered by the Buckeyes. Bazley�s other interests � Cincinnati, Dayton, Purdue and Xavier � have yet to offer.

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Ahrens and Bazley play on the same AAU team, and Ahrens said they often talk about playing together in college. Both have shown interest in OSU, Cincinnati and Dayton.

The other members of the state�s top five are Cleveland Holy Name guard Dwayne Cohill (No. 2 in Ohio, No. 83 nationally) and Pickerington North small forward Jerome Hunter (No. 4 and No. 117).

Hunter and Ahrens have both also been offered by Stony Brook, where former Ohio State assistant Jeff Boals is head coach.

Michigan�s three football de-commitments this week included a player from Ohio for the 2018 class that Ohio State had not given up recruiting.

Leonard Taylor, a tight end/defensive lineman from Springfield, said on social media that he was stepping away from his commitment to Michigan while he considers other options. One of those is Ohio State.

�Since April, he has visited Ohio State more times than he has visited Michigan,� Bucknuts recruiting analyst Bill Kurelic said. �Ohio State has only offered six high school juniors-to-be so far for its 2018 class, and he is one of them.�

Kurelic added, �I just think it�s a situation where he made his decision early and he�s not sure about it, and Ohio State happens to be recruiting him. But it is also an indication of how hot Ohio State is in the world of recruiting.�

Crew SC has won just one of its past 12 games, but the team�s television viewership has been consistently strong all season.

The Crew has been tracking with a 0.90 rating this season on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations � Channels 6, 28 and 53 � which translates into about 8,200 households. That represents a dramatic rise from the team�s 0.31 rating on Fox Sports Ohio in 2013, the last previous year in which the team�s broadcasts were metered.

Even more people are watching this season's games, because they also are shown on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel, but that network is not metered. The games were available only on TWCSC the past two seasons.

�We have been really pleased with the ratings,� said Tony D�Angelo, general manager of Sinclair�s Columbus stations. �They have more than met our expectations.�

A source with knowledge of Major League Soccer broadcast numbers said that the Crew ratings rank in the top five in the league among U.S. teams.

It�s clear that former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel isn�t going to play in the NFL this season, so ESPN went fishing to see whether the Canadian Football League would welcome him. CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge said the league would be happy to have him, although that would be up to the team that holds his rights, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

In that context, it is interesting to note what Tiger-Cats analyst Marshall Ferguson thought the fans� reaction would be to having Manziel in a Hamilton uniform.

"I think some people would be excited to have him here," Ferguson said. "There are 50 percent of the people who go, 'Yeah, that would be fantastic and it would be a lot of fun,' and there are half that are all ages, all demographics, who would say, 'We don't need that guy and we don't care about him. He doesn't bring anything to the table that (current Hamilton quarterback) Zach Collaros doesn't bring.' "

LeBron James knows, entering his 14th year in the NBA, that his career is more than half over, but he wouldn�t concede in an interview with ESPN that his skills are �going down� at 31 years old.

�I know I'm on the other side of the hill, being I'm about to be 14 (years in)," James said. "But my hill, I'm not going down the hill right now. I'm still climbing."

It is worth noting that although James may be a better basketball player now than he was three years ago because of his experience, his shooting accuracy was better in Miami from 2010 to 2013 � 41.4 percent from 16 to 23 feet and 36.9 percent from three-point range � than it has been in Cleveland. For the Cavs, he has shot a respective 39 and 33 percent.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com

@dailyhunter