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Four-star center Daniel Giddens says his top goal is to bring Ohio State coach Thad Matta his first NCAA title.

(Courtesy of adidas)

COLUMBUS, Ohio – It's the things that Thad Matta has already accomplished with the Ohio State basketball program that had premier junior center Daniel Giddens sold on the Buckeyes long before he verbally committed on Friday.

It's the things Giddens envisions for the future of the program that has had Matta sold for months longer.

"We want to get Coach Matta his first ring," Giddens told cleveland.com in a phone interview Monday evening. "We believe we have the talent for it, and we're hungry. We want that national championship at Ohio State."

The "we" to which Giddens is referring is Ohio State's 2015 recruiting class, a group that was already good before it took a step toward dominant with the addition of 6-foot-10, 235-pound big man.

Rated by Rivals.com a four-star prospect and the No. 37 overall player in the class, Giddens bolsters a recruiting class that already included pledges from point guard AJ Harris of Dayton (No. 115 in the Rivals rankings), Texas shooter Austin Grandstaff (No. 30) and Mickey Mitchell (No. 67), a pass-first point forward who is the brother of former OSU linebacker Mike Mitchell.

So that championship talk, which seems like regular fodder you'd typically find from a recently committed prospect, could actually hold weight for the Buckeyes in two years when considering Matta brought in a top-15 class in 2015.

"I am confident we'll be able to do big things at Ohio State," Giddens said. "That's why it was so easy to see myself playing there. We have big goals, but we're ready to stay hungry and work for them."

Before Giddens looked forward he looked back.

What he saw was Ohio State's vast success with previous big men, dating all the way back to Greg Oden, through Kosta Koufos and B.J. Mullens and to Jared Sullinger. The two most elite prospects of that group – Oden and Sullinger – led the Buckeyes to Final Fours.

Giddens, a prospect of Marietta (Ga.) Wheeler who chose the Buckeyes over Indiana, Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Wake Forest, could be a prospect of the same caliber.

And he isn't the only one who could see big things in Ohio State's future.

"Coach Matta told me he can see me having a big impact on the program," Giddens said. "My decision was just really the relationships that I built with Coach Matta and his coaching staff. And they have been consistent with everything they've been recruiting me for for the past year and a half, and it was just the place for me. The trust that we built, that was the biggest thing.

"And with Ohio State's big men, you have Greg Oden and Jared Sullinger and Byron Mullens, and I felt like in Coach Matta's system has done a great job of developing big men and getting them ready at this level. I want to go down that path."

Giddens' only official visit was to Ohio State, and he said it went about as well as he could have hoped. He got intimate time with Matta, toured the facilities and saw some of the team's summer workouts.

But truth is, Giddens, a versatile big who can block shots, run the floor and finish strong offensively, knew he was going to be a Buckeye before he arrived at Ohio State.

"Ohio State was my only official visit and I just felt like it was just the place to me, just when it came to the coaching staff. I took other (unofficial) visits, but after taking an official visit, it was just the place for me. It was just the environment for me. When I stepped in the city of Columbus I was like, 'Oh shoot, this is the place for me."