He can do it all…Bruce Thornton led the Buckeyes with 25 points, and defensively stripped the ball away from Green Bay’s Anthony Roy, the nation’s leading scorer. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Ohio State impressed Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb with its defense, it’s point guard, and just about everything else Monday night as it surpassed 100 points for the second straight game.
Columbus, OH – Lopsided November games against inferior opponents don’t always provide much evidence about how a team is growing. Are they relying on talent? Are they coasting?
Some teams do.
Are they jelling?
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
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If you wonder about the Ohio State men’s basketball team, just ask first-year Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb. The short of it is this: the Buckeyes are jelling well with a lot of new players and the leadership of junior point guard Bruce Thornton.
Gottlieb’s been paid to talk about basketball for a long time by various networks, and he proved Monday night that he has mastered the art of the monologue after his team lost 102-69 to the Buckeyes.
For three minutes and 45 seconds, he spoke without a question being asked. Gottlieb told everyone what they wanted to know about the Buckeyes (5-1) and then some.
“They don’t have any weaknesses on defense,” he began.
He went on to explain how his team is usually able to attack the other team’s center. Until last Friday’s game against Campbell, the Buckeyes’ man in the middle was 7-foot-1 Aaron Bradshaw, the sophomore transfer from Kentucky.
In the absence of Aaron Bradshaw…Evan Mahaffey stepped in to block the shot attempt of Green Bay’s Anthony Roy.
But Bradshaw was missing again. OSU’s only statement is that Bradshaw isn’t participating in team activities. The Columbus Dispatch reported Monday that the university is investigating Bradshaw’s possible connection to a domestic incident at his off-campus apartment last week. Bradshaw has not been charged, and there is no timetable for his possible return to the team.
In Bradshaw’s place, 6-9 Sean Stewart led the defensive effort underneath, grabbed eight rebounds, blocked a shot and scored 11 points in his first action after being out two games with an injury. Gottlieb’s plan to attack him from the wings fell through.
“He just recovers so quickly, and he plays so hard,” Gottlieb said.
Green Bay (2-5) had a good shooting night and somehow shot better against the Buckeyes than any opponent this season. The Phoenix made 49% of all their shots and 41.7% (10 of 24) from 3-point range. The previous highs were 40.4% overall by Campbell and 38.1% (8 of 21) from 3-point range in their only loss to Texas A&M.
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But during put-away time everything changed. The Buckeyes responded to their halftime lead of 10 being cut to six early in the second half and later to eight with 11:56 left at 61-53. They outscored the Phoenix 41-16 to finish the game.
The most dominating stretch was a 20-1 run that pushed the score to 93-60 before Green Bay made a foul shot with 3:17 left. The Phoenix went 5:58 without a field goal before Anthony Roy, the nation’s leading scorer, hit a rainbow 3-pointer with 2:44 left to make the score 95-64.
Meechie Johnson’s hot three-point shooting netted him 15 first half points.
“That’s a really well-coached team,” Gottlieb said. “If you watch on tape and you look at the analytics, their defense is outstanding … outstanding. Really, really connected and physical.”
The Buckeyes’ defense had to be focused on Roy. The senior from Oakland, California, must have discovered something about his ability to score last year as an NAIA All-American at Langston University in Oklahoma. Through his first six games at Green Bay he led the nation in scoring at 28.0 points a game and made 3-pointers at 4.8 a game.
The Buckeyes sent multiple defenders at Roy, but permit Roy a sliver of feeling like he is open and he will shoot. He made 10 of 16 shots, including 8 of 12 3-point attempts, for 30 points in almost 34 minutes.
“He’s as good a scorer as there is in college basketball,” Gottlieb sad. “It doesn’t matter what you throw at him, he can really score. And then the best part is that he is, in fact, coachable. Yes, he wants the ball. Yes, he thinks he can score every time he gets it. He’s probably right.”
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Ohio State’s box score is full of lots of good numbers. They shot 55.9% and 45.2% (14 of 31) from 3-point range. Seven players scored in double figures: Bruce Thornton 25, Meechie Johnson 17 (5 of 10 3-point shooting), John Mobley 14, Stewart 11, and Micah Parrish, Devin Royal and Evan Mahaffey 10 apiece. Royal had 10 rebounds, Thornton nine assists and Mahaffey two blocked shots.
The Buckeyes move well without the ball, rarely turn the ball over (mostly because of Thornton’s efficient play) and are sharing the ball and shooting the ball unselfishly.
John Mobley came off the bench to score 14 points…all in the second half.
Gottlieb didn’t make any news by praising Thornton’s game on both ends and leadership.
“I know he had 25 and nine, but he blew up a couple plays that we had where guys should be wide open,” Gottlieb said. “He just instinctively read it. It wasn’t his job at the time. I’m sure their staff will take credit, but we hadn’t run it. So that’s just a really smart basketball player, understanding, looking around, communicating.”
Gottlieb, at the end of his monologue, came back to Thornton.
“Bruce was really the story,” he continued, “Bruce and Meechie. Again, everybody will get caught up in the in the 25 points, but you can’t speed him up. He played 31 minutes, 52 seconds and he’s always there defensively. He leads, he shoots, scores and passes. He’s a big-time basketball player. And the rest of the guys just defend and feed off his energy.”
Thornton took a scoring lead more than he has been and scored 16 of his season-high in the second half. But he said he was the same old Bruce.
“I do the same thing every time we have a game,” he said. “I’m not going to change anything: read my Bible, have a shootaround, get Subway, get my little nap, put my lucky shoes and socks on, and I just play.”
As good as the stat sheet and the final score looked – 100 points for the second straight game since 1990 – Thornton said the team knew it needed to play better in the second half.
“We responded in the second half because we did not play well,” Thornton said. “We’ll probably be watching films for a while.”
Next up is ACC foe Pittsburgh at 2:30 p.m. Friday at home. The Panthers are 6-1 with wins over West Virginia and LSU and a six-point loss to Wisconsin.
If the Panthers want to know what to expect, they should just call Gottlieb.
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