Bruce Thornton’s career came to an abrupt halt in Thursday’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss to TCU in Greenville, S.C. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Angie Greenwood)
How and why Ohio State lost its first NCAA Tournament game since its last appearance in 2022 is open to debate and how fans choose to feel about it.
Which will matter more to the distinct levels of Ohio State basketball fans – the diehards, the casuals, the in-betweens?
First choice: That the Buckeyes finished the season strong and made it back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022?
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The casuals and the in-betweens will be happy with that, already looking forward to next year, pleased with the progress under Jake Diebler and a 21-13 record.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com. Follow on X @jw_gilbert
Sure, those fans wanted to win Thursday’s 8 vs. 9 toss-up game against TCU and get a shot at mighty Duke, but they were at work and probably didn’t get to watch the 12:15 p.m. tip-off. Great job coming back from down 15 at the half. Lost a tough one. Hey, at least we didn’t lose to High Point, wherever that is.
This is what they were happy to hear after the game.
“It’s definitely fuel to the fire,” sophomore John Mobley Jr. said. “It’s going to be motivation for me every day for the summer coming up and the work I’m ready to put in to make sure we get back in this position and go farther next time.”
And this.
“It was a great experience,” freshman Amare Bynum said. “Every kid dreams of being here. Definitely going to work really hard in the summer to get back here and keep working on my game, and just do what Coach says and keep working.”
Or this.
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“I hope people saw and appreciate the toughness and family atmosphere we have in this program,” Diebler said. “That’s what this program was built upon, being tough and being connected. It’s a big reason why we got to this point of the season. It’s a big reason why we played the way we played in the second half.”
But ….
Second choice: That the Buckeyes lost in the final seconds, 66-64, to TCU in Greenville, S.C., with a hundred what-ifs that could have changed the outcome? The diehards are angry, blaming Diebler, blaming the fact he was hired, blaming any number of missed shots and decisions, blaming the officials. Ah, forget it. When’s the spring football game?
Amare Bynum played his role, but the Buckeyes needed a little more from everyone.
Objectivity, as much as everyone is convinced of their opinions, does not exist in March. Everyone watches the Madness through whatever colored glasses they choose. And those glasses determine how you saw the final two possessions.
To get to 64-64, TCU’s Micah Robinson splashed a 3-pointer from the corner with 57 seconds left. Ohio State turned to Bruce Thornton, its best player who wasn’t scoring at his usual rate, for a tying 3-pointer with 34 seconds left.
Down to two possessions.
TCU then did what it should. Hold for the last shot. The Horned Frogs worked the ball until Xavier Edmonds carved out space in the middle of the lane with Amare Bynum on his back. Edmonds turned and scored for the lead with 4.3 seconds left.
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How did Edmonds get in position to score? He camped in the lane for seven seconds. Of course, expecting college basketball officials to call a three-seconds violation in that moment is like expecting it to snow in July. They’d rather ignore it, swallow their whistles and “let the players decide it.”
The no-call left Ohio State 94 feet from the promised land of survive and advance. Thornton took the inbounds pass on the run, but TCU was ready with two defenders, with their hands high, and Thornton couldn’t locate an open teammate down court as he dribbled.
Jake Diebler said the final play was meant to find someone open down court, but it didn’t happen.
All he was left with was a half-court heave that didn’t come close.
“TCU corralled the ball well and maybe that limited his ability to get the ball down the floor,” Diebler said. “We were trying to get it to him on the run and give him freedom to make a decision. We had a couple outlets down the floor that, if we could get it to them, he could get it to them to get a look, or if we could get it up there quick enough, we could use a timeout to set up in the half-court.”
The diehards threw up their hands. That’s all you got? Yes, those 4.3 seconds could have gone better. But the odds of pulling off a win in that situation are quite long.
Working backward, enough things went right for the Buckeyes to change the outcome and enough things went wrong that led to the loss.
The Buckeyes became the aggressors in the second half, an attitude they lacked in the first 20 minutes. With that aggression came challenged shots and stops on defense, and rim attacks and more open shots on offense.
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Devin Royal scored twice near the basket to cap a 15-1 run that put the Buckeyes seemingly in command at 55-50 with 6:18 left. The Buckeyes, on a run and feeling confident, would surely finish off the Horned Frogs. But in a sport defined by runs and the random nature of them, TCU responded as you would expect any NCAA Tournament team to do.
After a Bynum dunk put the Buckeyes up 57-53 at the 5:37 mark, the Buckeyes missed five straight shots and six of their final seven. TCU made four of their last five. Such is the nature of a close game and the make-or-miss fickleness of the basketball.
Amare Bynum’s energy helped bring Ohio State from 15 down to a five-point lead in the second half.
The Buckeyes won the second half 40-27. So you could say, and get lots of support, that the Buckeyes lost this game in the first half.
TCU was more ready, more aggressive and the ball knew. How else to explain a team that shoots 33.1% from three-point range, and ranks 233rd in the nation, making 7 of 13 3-pointers in the first half.
The Buckeyes, stumbling around as they were, still trailed by only four heading into the final three minutes of the half. But TCU made the run of the game – 11-0 on the shoulders of three 3-pointers – to put the Buckeyes in a 39-24 halftime hole.
The second half was completely different, but 15 points are a lot to overcome. Mobley Jr. scored 10 of his team-high 15 points in the second half.
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“I just thought I’m not going home like that, I’m not going home without putting my all to it,” Mobley Jr. said. “I’ve just got to do better. I was a little sluggish in the first half, can’t do that. That put us in the drought in the first place. Second half, I had to do everything I can to bring the team back and give us a better chance of winning.”
The Buckeyes enjoyed their highest scoring season in 34 years, but they didn’t handle TCU’s perimeter defensive pressure in the first half. The Horned Frogs double-teamed Thornton often to limit him to 10 points. They trapped in the corners, on the baseline and at the top of the key.
John Mobley Jr. led Ohio State with 15 points, scoring 10 in the second half.
Diebler’s second-half adjustments and reminders to make quicker decisions to combat the double-teams, coupled with better defense, fueled the comeback.
“We anticipated seeing that, and we didn’t execute well enough against it in the first half,” Diebler said. “We moved some pieces around from a spacing standpoint in the second half, but ultimately it was kind of doing what we had prepared to do better.”
But in the end, Thornton’s NCAA Tournament experience lasted one game. With the attention paid to him, he needed more scoring around him. Mobley Jr. got his 15, Royal got 14, Bynum 12 and Christoph Tilly 10.
But in the tournament a big, big game from someone is usually needed to advance. And in a two-point game, there’s plenty of blame to go around. And maybe a little credit to the other team.
Pick what you’d like.
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