EAST LANSING, Mich. – If anyone was qualified to judge whether the shots were good ones or not, Bruce Thornton was the guy.
On an afternoon when the Ohio State men’s basketball team was able to scratch out 60 points against the second-stingiest defense in the Big Ten, its senior captain scored more than half of them. Thornton put up 16 in the first half, equaled that in the second half and walked off the court with 32 points on 12-of-22 shooting.
It wasn’t enough. No. 15 Michigan State (22-5, 12-4 Big Ten) used a second-half run to build a 10-point lead and hold on for a 66-60 win against the upset-minded Buckeyes (17-10, 9-7), denying Thornton and the shorthanded Ohio State roster yet another opportunity for the type of win that would put them in position for an enjoyable Selection Sunday.
Thornton had a pretty good feel for what cost the Buckeyes inside the Breslin Center on Feb. 22, and he mentioned it seven times in a five-minute conversation outside the team’s locker room. Ohio State, he noted, went 4 for 22 from deep.
That’s an 18.2% shooting percentage from beyond the arc.
“At this level, you’ve got to make shots,” Thornton said. “You’ve got to make shots. We got great looks but we just didn’t make the shots we needed to.”
On a night when injuries, illness and fouls forced coach Jake Diebler to again get creative with lineups, the Buckeyes felt pretty good about the looks they got from deep.
They just missed them.
“Those empty possessions eventually were the difference in the game,” Diebler said.
Thornton was 2 for 8. Taison Chatman, a 53.1% 3-point shooter on 32 attempts this season, was 1 for 5. Colin White went 1 for 2 after having missed all 14 of his 3-point shots this season. Amare Bynum was 0 for 2. He had gone 3 for 4 in each of the last two games. Gabe Cupps was 0 for 2 and Puff Johnson 0 for 3.
Plenty of those attempts would be universally acknowledged to be of the wide-open variety.
Inside the arc, Ohio State was 19 for 30 (63.3%). This was the third-worst two-point defensive shooting performance allowed by Michigan State this season and its worst in Big Ten play. The Buckeyes managed to marry that to their worst 3-point shooting game all year.
Add in that the Buckeyes were just 10 for 17 (58.6%) from the free-throw line and their hopes of springing the upset while playing without Devin Royal and John Mobley Jr. were dashed.
“Definitely not happy that we didn’t win, but the stuff we did [in practice] definitely transferred over,” Thornton said. “Playing in this type of environment is tough, and at the end of the day, we didn’t make shots. We had some great looks from 3. I took some semi-contested, but I work on them shots. The 3s that Puff had wide-open, [Bynum], Taison, I feel like I’ll live with them shots.”
In this game, the Spartans lived with them, too.
Here are three more takeaways from Ohio State’s loss at Michigan State.
Devin Royal’s absence loomed large
An illness that has made its way through the roster in recent days had a pronounced impact on the Buckeyes at Michigan State.
On Feb. 21, freshman forward Amare Bynum was unable to practice, but junior wing Devin Royal was. In the win against the Badgers on Feb. 17, Royal had 25 points and five rebounds while Bynum had his third straight game scoring in double-digits, finishing with 13 points and six boards.
By the morning of the Michigan State game, Bynum was feeling better, but Royal was feeling worse. Both were listed as questionable on the availability report and went through warmups, but while Bynum had pep in his step, Royal looked labored.
Bynum started and played 28:58. Royal watched from the bench. Neither scored a point for the Buckeyes, who were already without second-leading scorer John Mobley Jr. for a third game due to a hand injury.
“He tried to get out and warm up and see if he could go,” Diebler said of Royal. “This morning [of the game], we huddled up as a staff and talked through maybe the possibility that he can’t play, but he went out in warmups. Once he did that, I thought, OK, but he tried. It’s unlucky. There’s not much you can do about that.”
In his absence, Puff Johnson made his first start after being added to the team in mid-January. He finished with 2 points, four fouls and a turnover in 19:46, missing all four of his shot attempts. Diebler said he started Johnson because the move would be the least disruptive for the team’s rotations.
“We thought that was the best thing to provide for our guys some sort of normalcy,” he said. “It’s obviously a big change, but that helped provide a little bit of rotational normalcy. He battled and played hard. Certainly not his best game, but he fought.”
Bruce Thornton had an all-time game
It came in a losing effort, but Ohio State’s captain put together yet another impressive performance. He played the entire 40 minutes, drew six fouls, did not commit a foul, had two assists and did not turn it over.
Michigan State’s scouting report surely prominently featured Thornton. And yet, with the Michigan State defense knowing he was going to be the top option for the Buckeyes, he scored 32 points with no turnovers and no fouls committed.
“He plays the game the right way,” Diebler said. “He doesn’t try to trick anybody. He plays with great poise. His toughness today when we knew we were missing firepower offensively, he rose and stepped up. Thought that was great, and against an elite defense.”
Asked how he avoided committing a foul despite playing the entirety of a game where 38 were whistled, Thornton chalked it up to experience.
“Playing in this league for a long time,” he said. “Understanding how the ref is calling it, what they’re looking for. It was a physical game, but you can always win a mental edge by paying attention to what you see on the floor.”
He also moved past Herb Williams and into second place on Ohio State’s all-time scoring list. Thornton is up to 2,037 points, trailing just Dennis Hopson at 2,096.
Rebounding lulls were critical for Ohio State
On the pregame radio show, Diebler said that the real game between the Buckeyes and Spartans would begin after a shot was taken. Michigan State leads the nation in defensive rebounding rate and is fifth in offensive rebounding rate according to KenPom.com, and Ohio State’s challenge of combating the Spartans on the glass was exacerbated by Royal’s absence and Bynum’s health.
Michigan State grabbed the game’s first seven rebounds but only had a 2-0 lead when Taison Chatman finally nabbed one for the Buckeyes with 16:58 left in the half. Ohio State led 26-23 at the break despite being outrebounded 22-15 and outscored 11-5 in second-chance points.
The Spartans would keep hitting the glass, and it helped turn the tide in the second half. When Coen Carr pulled down a defensive rebound with 9:08 to play and the game tied at 45, it started a run in which the Spartans grabbed 11 of the next 12 rebounds. That lasted until Thornton got one with 1:03 to play. In the 8:05 span, Michigan State outscored Ohio State 18-9 to take control.
“There were a couple times where we had a good initial hit [on a rebound] but they keep moving,” Diebler said. “We had a couple guys hit once and then stand and watch, and they made us pay for that. That was a huge part of our game plan and part of where our execution in the second half wasn’t where it needed to be to get the win today.”
Tilly led Ohio State with eight rebounds, all on the defensive glass. Michigan State finished with a 15-4 advantage in offensive rebounds and a 16-5 edge in second-chance points.
“They’re a very good rebounding team,” Tilly said. “I took that to heart. I told myself that I had to match that and be more physical, be more active on the boards.”
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Bruce Thornton can’t push depleted Ohio State past Michigan State: Takeaways
Reporting by Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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