Seated inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with her son, Bruce Thornton, Tiaunna Briggans was patient leading up to the second round of the 2026 NBA Draft. After all, Thornton had done all he could, putting together a consistent four-year body of work at Ohio State before working out for 18 different NBA teams, and all he and his family could do now was wait for someone to pick him.
Four minutes before his name was announced over the speakers, Thornton’s agent informed him he was about to be picked. Pulling out her phone, Briggans sent a message to a few other family members and Ohio State men’s basketball coach Jake Diebler.
Get ready. Turn the TV on. If you’re not tuned in right at 8 p.m., you’re going to miss it.
The Houston Rockets had made a trade to acquire the first pick of the second round, and they used it to select Thornton at No. 31 overall. Just like that, Ohio State’s most prolific scorer and first four-time captain was off the board.
All the work and, just as critically, all the patience had paid off.
“It just was like, I had to take a real deep breath,” she said a day after the draft. “Letting the air out like, ‘Wow, did this just happen? Did it happen like this?’ Nobody could’ve envisioned it. You couldn’t.”
Thornton’s final NBA workout was June 22, one day before the first round of the draft. It was in Los Angeles, and from there, he had to decide what he wanted to do on draft day. Thornton’s initial inclination was to watch it at home in Georgia, but then his agent told him they were getting him a suit for the event.
It was an eye-opener.
“I was like, ‘Well, they know something, Bruce.’ ” his mom said.
Briggans was hoping for Thornton to perhaps sneak into the end of the first round while realizing he was likely going somewhere early in the second. There was nothing left to do but head to Brooklyn, suit up and wait.
“It was just being patient,” his mom said. “You’ve earned whatever you’re going to get. It wasn’t a matter of anybody else, it was just being patient.”
Four or five teams were relaying their interest to Thornton’s agent, Briggans said, but the family did not attend the first round of the draft because they had been informed he wouldn’t be taken that day. He was invited to be part of ESPN’s broadcast for the second round, another indicator of how teams viewed Thornton.
With his agent working the phones, Briggans said they expected to know where he was likely headed by 7:30 p.m., a half-hour before the start of the ceremony.
Instead, they got about a four-minute warning.
“We knew it would be no lower than (pick) 35, but we didn’t know what team,” Briggans said.
After having worn some shade of red at Alpharetta (Georgia) Milton High School and then Ohio State, Briggans said Thornton joked that he can’t seem to get away from the color; otherwise, he was thrilled with the opportunity to play for Houston. He’s projected to play with a fellow Buckeye alumnus in Jae’Sean Tate.
The Rockets were not among the teams to host Thornton for a workout, but Briggans said that obviously it didn’t mean they weren’t interested in him.
“The agent said it’s not that they didn’t want him, it’s just their scheduling and when they wanted him didn’t fit what we had already aligned,” she said.
The celebration was joyous but reserved. Thornton and his mom went out to eat after he was drafted, went back to their hotel, freshened up, packed up and got ready to head home. A 3:45 a.m. shuttle took them to the airport for a flight back to Georgia, where Thornton will be until he’s required to report to Houston on June 29.
“We didn’t even go to sleep,” she said.
Now, it’s time to start assimilating to the professional level and all that entails. But given what the process was like leading up to the draft, Briggans said she sees brighter things ahead.
“It’s about to get easier,” she said. “The tough part’s over.”
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: Anxious pre-NBA draft wait paid off for Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton
Reporting by Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
