Bruce Thornton - The Ultimate Buckeye

After finishing up the regular season with a 91-78 win over Indiana, Bruce Thornton has now played in 133 career collegiate games, all of them being in an Ohio State uniform.

It hasn't been without trials and tribulations though, as Ohio State hasn't made the NCAA Tournament a single time during Thornton's career thus far. Thornton, who became the all-time Ohio State leading scorer in the game against Indiana, has been one of the best and most consistent players during his four seasons as a Buckeye.

It isn't hard to imagine that plenty of teams offered Thornton a lot to go to a program that has had more recent success than Ohio State. Going into his senior year this year, Thornton was probably the single best player in the country who hadn't played in the NCAA Tournament (excluding current freshmen). If he had left last off season, I don't think college basketball fans would've batted much of an eye, understanding the situation he was in. I mean, I think Ohio State fans would've understood, even if they would've been hurt.

But he didn't leave.

I'm not going to declare that this season has been everything Thornton and Ohio State have wanted so far. BUT, they're currently positioned themselves to be on the right side of the bubble for the first time in Thornton's career. At the time of this writing, bracketmatrix has Ohio State as a 10 seed. Crazier things have happened, but it does appear like we'll be getting Bruce Thornton in the NCAA Tournament for the first time, and all college basketball fans should be happy to hear that.

In the modern era of transfers and new faces everywhere, Thornton has become a bit of a relic. He's one of only 22 high major, scholarship players to be finishing his senior season, all at 1 school per Isaac Trotter.

So regardless of whether Ohio State wins a game in March or not (assuming they make it), Thornton is one of those players that simply deserves to be recognized for what he's done. He's been a 4 year starter and captain, improving his game each and every season.

Thornton has been one of the most productive players in the Big Ten this season, and it's nothing new to him. He's averaged at least 10 points a game in all 4 of his seasons, and he's averaging just over 20 points a game this year. He's a career 38% three point shooter, 55% from 2, an 82.6% at the line.

He's simply been one of the most efficient players in college basketball the last two seasons, both in terms of scoring and facilitating. Despite being a lead ball handler all 4 seasons, Thornton has posted the following turnover percentages in each season:

• Freshman - 14.1%
• Sophomore - 9.1%
• Junior - 11.0%
• Senior - 8.7%

To put into perspective how incredible a TO% of 8.7 is for a guy like Thornton, someone else with a TO% of 8.7 is former Ohio State teammate, Bowen Hardman - who is playing at Akron. Hardman has been a great shooter this season, making 63 3s while shooting 41.4% from 3. However, he has just 8 assists on the year. Thornton has 122.

That's what has defined Bruce Thornton as a player. He's going to make all the right plays, and he very rarely's going to hurt the team. The Buckeyes can trust him to go get 30 if he needs (his career high is 38), or he can get you 7 assists (his career high is 10).

Thornton has been in the top 40 of ORtg each of the last two seasons per Kenpom. This year he's at #13 at the time of recording. When you filter for only players who use at least 20% of teams possessions, Thornton ends up as the single most efficient player in all of college basketball, just beating out Yaxel Lendeborg and Cam Boozer.

It simply can't be overstated how efficient Thornton has been throughout his career. With that though, he's still found ways to improve each and every year. His ORtg for his 4 seasons are below:

• Freshman - 112.0
• Sophomore - 121.5
• Junior - 130.0
• Senior - 137.5

This season the big jump has been from his two point efficiency, and that's been in part because of how Ohio State has used him. He's still been the go-to guy that can create for himself and for others, but the Buckeyes wanted him to be even more focused on scoring this season, reallocating some of the ball handling responsibilities from Thornton to Mobley.

Which brings us to just how dynamic of a scorer Thornton has been in his career, and especially this season.

He has 2110 career points.

That doesn't happen by accident.

It starts with how Thornton is built. He's listed at 6'2, 215 lbs, and he looks like he could've been recruited to play football. He's generally stronger than most guards that have to defend him, but he's also just as quick as most of them as well. Thornton seems to never get off balance, being able to absorb contact before calmly flowing into a shot, and this has really helped him become a 3 level scorer.

As you can see in Thornton's shot chart this season, it's a whole lotta red. If he gets into the paint, it's basically over for the defense. If you leave him open in the corner it's nearly automatic. And if you do force him to take a pull up 2 or 3, he can knock those down at a very high clip.

In other words, he's hyper efficient basically any way you slice it up.

Even with a slightly changed role this season (more to come on that below), Thornton still is a primary ball handler who's going to run a bunch of pick and rolls. On the season, Thornton's shooting 62.2% from 2 and 34.4% from 3 out of pick and rolls, with the majority of those shots coming from two.

The plays like above will probably be the first thing I think of when randomly thinking about Bruce Thornton in like 15 years as his Ohio State scoring records gets broken by someone in their like 8th year of college, or whatever happens with the future of college basketball. I digress.

Thornton comes off the screen and immediately goes to work to create the space he needs by initiating contact. Pay attention to how he seems to never be off balance though. He bumps Simpkins off him before jabbing Bittle away enough to get a great look. I think part of it his simply his overall strength, but he's also able to glide his feet as he moves, instead of having to hop or plod along.

This clip is also a Bruce Thornton staple. He doesn't have to overpower you every time, and he shows it in this one. As he comes off the screen, Wisconsin is in drop coverage. Thornton calmly walks into the open space and gets Boyd to bite on the initial fake, before then going into a floater. On the season, Thornton is shooting 58.7% on floaters, putting him in the top seven percentile in the country.

Ohio State goes to a ram screen here to set up space for Thornton. Washington is in a high hedge, so instead of utilizing the screen, Thornton refuses it to move away from the defense. Here's where he shows off the strength, balance, and touch by bullying his way to the paint and getting a tough layup/floater shot to go over the defense.

Ohio State ghosts the screen here, and it more or less turns into a quick isolation. Because of the ghost screen though, CJ Cox is positioned to try and force Thornton into the screen, where the hedge should be, by opening up his hips. Thornton recognizes this and snatches back before going into a combo move to keep Cox off balance, ultimately resulting in a pull up 3 that drops straight in.

These are just a few example, but Thornton truly can beat a defense in a myriad of ways with the ball in his hands, both scoring and facilitating.

The biggest difference this season that has allowed Thornton to cross the 20 point per game threshold is his increase in usage off the ball.

Above are the percentage of his possessions coming out of pick and roll, transition, and off screens in each season of his career.

It's worth mentioning that Ohio State is getting Thornton out in transition even more this season than before, and he's turned that into shooting nearly 80% from 2 while in transition. That's an extra point or two per game right there by simply letting Thornton use his size and speed to his advantage. It fits in with Ohio State in general playing slightly faster this season.

The other area, which is probably a bit more interesting, is that Ohio State has used Thornton off ball WAY more this season compared to last year. This season, 10% of his possessions come where he's coming off a screen, up from just 3.5% last season.

In addition to pindowns leading to direct buckets, they also indirectly can lead to more points that come via pick and roll because it gives Thornton more space to operate as he catches, before then getting an on-ball screen set for himself.

When you combine those two areas with Thornton simply improving as an interior finisher, that's how he was able to jump from shooting 55% from 2 last season to 65% this season.

Ohio State went to Peja action in the clip above (Thornton sets a backscreen before getting a handoff). This allows Thornton to be on the move and read the defense while still having both a pivot and live dribble available to him. With Notre Dame going under, Thornton simply went straight up into his jumper on this one.

This is a more traditional example of Thornton working off ball. He starts in the corner before coming off a pindown that Tilly set. This allows Thornton to utilize his strength and speed because he's catching on the move before getting into the teeth of the defense, making it easier for him to operate. Again, notice how on balance he always is.

The clip above is a variation of the Peja action, where instead of flowing into a handoff after setting the back screen, he flows into a simple pindown. Once he reads that Scott was trying to go under the screen, Thornton flared off of it in order to create the space for the three point attempt.

In this clip, Thornton starts by setting a flex screen before getting the pindown in the slot. He's then able to curl, catch, and read the defense before deciding to put the ball on the ground and get into the paint where he was able to contort his body and convert (even when he happens to be off balance, he still seems very poised.)

This is an example where the initial off ball action doesn't specifically generate the scoring chance, but the movement helps set everything up. After getting the ball into Royal on the perimeter, Ohio State runs Thornton off a staggered pindown, which immediately flows into Spain pick and roll (backscreen set on screener). Since Thornton catches the ball and isn't already dribbling, he has both his pivot and live dribble available to him which simply creates more opportunity for him to get to his spot. This allows him to set up his subtle jab right, before ripping left and attacking the outside foot of Singleton. He gets around him and then gets all the way to the rim.

As shown, Thornton can put the ball in the hoop in basically any way that you could think of, and he's done it more than anyone else in Ohio State history.

There's still a full March postseason left, and I don't want to completely discard it, in large part because Thornton can simply will Ohio State to wins.

With that said, it's likely that Thornton's Ohio State career won't end with nearly the post season accomplishments that he and Ohio State wanted. Despite that though, there seems to be nobody that embodies Ohio State basketball better than Thornton. In a world where (a small minority of) people try to discredit fun stories like Miami OH going 31-0, I think it's important that we recognize players and teams that do things that you simply don't see all that often.

Bruce Thornton is going down as the all-time leading scorer in Ohio State history, and that can't be taken away from him (well at least for now it seems somewhat safe, although if Mobley plays 4 seasons at Ohio State and takes even more shots in the next two years....)

Players like Bruce Thornton don't come around every day or even every year, and this type of loyalty has become increasingly more rare in college basketball. I'm sure there are a few that I can't think of, but there may not be another player in college basketball who stayed 4 years despite having a ton of individual success and little team success.

Hopefully that changes over the next handful of weeks, and we get to see Thornton have his own iconic highlights in March this season. Regardless of whether that happens or not, Thornton will forever be one of the ultimate Buckeyes, something that hopefully people are able to recognize as being as meaningful as it is.