No one on Ohio State’s roster has poured more into Buckeye basketball than Bruce Thornton.
He’s a three-time captain and three-year starter, the only repeat starter from last year’s Ohio State team. But this is the first time Thornton, a player who’s always hungered to see his team win at the highest level, enters the end of a regular season battling to secure an NCAA Tournament berth.
“We prep for these moments,” Thornton said after Ohio State toppled Nebraska in double overtime on Tuesday. “We’ve been doing this since June. It’s March. I'm just very excited to take it day by day. Tonight, I'm gonna go to sleep. See what tomorrow brings.”
As the Buckeyes battle through the thick of the NCAA Tournament bubble, Thornton has displayed another level of intensity and held a different look in his eye during Ohio State’s last two critical wins. So says head coach Jake Diebler.
"When I evaluate Bruce's leadership – and make no mistake, he's always a good leader – but when he becomes a great leader is when he's using his voice throughout the course of the game. And he did it tonight. He did it in timeouts. He did it in between plays. And he was holding guys accountable at times. And there was a passion to it, which, obviously, I love.”
Thornton’s been in the spotlight for Ohio State since his first time lacing up for the Scarlet and Gray.
He started at point guard as a freshman in his first collegiate game back in November 2022. Ohio State finished the season 16-19 but had a miraculous run to the semifinals of the 2023 Big Ten Tournament, with Thornton averaging 15.5 points and 4.3 assists per game.
The Buckeyes won six of their final eight games through the regular season and conference tourney after Diebler took over as interim head coach following Chris Holtmann’s firing in February 2024, Thornton’s sophomore year. He led Ohio State in points (15.7) and assists (4.8) per game that campaign. It wasn’t enough to sniff the NCAA Tournament, however, and OSU settled for an NIT bid, where it lost in the quarterfinals to Georgia.
This season, Thornton is putting up the best numbers of his career, racking up 17.8 points per game at a clip of 50.7% from the field with a gaudy 43.2% mark from 3-point range. His effective field goal percentage, which appropriately weighs 3-point shots as 50% more valuable, is 58.8%. He’s added 4.5 assists and 1.1 steals per contest. And Ohio State is firmly in the hunt to go dancing.
“Everybody knows what the goal is,” Thornton said. “This team has so much fight, we don't give up at all, no matter what the circumstances are. We keep fighting until it’s zero on the clock and it showed today.”
Less than two weeks ago, it looked like Ohio State might be fumbling its NCAA Tournament chance. The Buckeyes followed up a gut-wrenching rivalry loss to No. 17 Michigan with perhaps their worst defeat of the season, dropping a 70-49 game at home to a team well beneath them in the Big Ten standings, Northwestern. A third loss followed at UCLA as illness swept through the team, sidelining center Aaron Bradshaw and limiting star freshman guard John Mobley Jr.
But Ohio State clung to life after a 14-point halftime lead evaporated at USC to win 87-82, with Thornton collecting 20 points and five assists. He racked up 29 points, nine assists and two steals to pull the Buckeyes over the finish line against Nebraska, but more important to Diebler was Thornton’s ever-present leadership.
“When he's using his voice like he has, it does help will us to be successful,” Diebler said. “It's something that he's grown in. And I'm really proud of him for that because he and I have had a lot of conversations about that. And he's embraced it. And he can do it, he can do it and play at a really high level. It's what makes special players special.”
Thornton had help against Nebraska. Three of his teammates also picked up at least 20 points, those being Micah Parrish (22), Mobley (20) and Devin Royal (20).
Ohio State led for more than 38 minutes in regulation but Nebraska hung around, primarily through the efforts of Brice Williams, who scored a Value City Arena-record 43 points for the Huskers. He buried 3-point and midrange jumpers back-to-back to put Nebraska ahead 94-89 in the opening 70 seconds of the first overtime. It felt like a moment the Buckeyes could have folded.
Instead, Thornton and company rallied, forced a second overtime and outlasted the Huskers 116-114 for a needed Quad 2 win.
“That moment, that segment was a great representation of what this program is about,” Diebler said. “And, you know, I want guys to be aggressive. I don't want us to flinch. I don't want us to play safe. And this group has bought into that, especially here the last couple months. And I think the way we did it was just a fight together, which probably makes me the most proud.”
Thornton and Parrish traded a pair of massive 3-pointers to give Ohio State two different two-score leads in double overtime.
“We’ve worked on those shots each and every day, so there's no moment that's too big for us,” Thornton said. “I feel like (Parrish) is gonna make it or Juni or whoever gonna shoot.”
Indiana
Hoosiers
The Buckeyes and Thornton have a chance to all but clinch an NCAA Tournament berth at Indiana on Saturday. A loss to the Hoosiers during the 3:45 p.m. game on CBS and things could get dicey. But they’ve been in these situations before.
“We just keep showing that we never quit,” Thornton said. “We just keep fighting. We just executed and we got the stops that we needed. I feel like we have versatile guards and wins and centers that are playing relentless each and every night – it makes the job easy.”
