The day of Ohio State’s 91-78 win over Indiana in the regular-season finale on March 7, Bryce Thornton was in a rush. The Florida defensive back jumped in a car and drove to Orlando as soon as the Gators’ spring practice ended. He had a flight to catch.
Bryce wasn’t going to make it for the game. But he still wanted to be there for his brother, Buckeyes guard Bruce Thornton, who had entered his last home game just 12 points shy of Dennis Hopson for the most points in Ohio State program history. Bryce purchased wi-fi on the plane, and when his brother broke the program record with a first-half three, Bryce celebrated with a lot of silent hand gestures.
“I wasn’t trying to yell and nothing on the plane,” Bryce tells Hoops HQ.
He had made it in time for the afterparty, which was held at Thornton’s apartment and attended by about 10 family members. Bryce got a chance to chat with his brother, finally. “This is crazy,” Bryce told Bruce Thornton. Bruce acknowledged it, sure. But … he didn’t really seem to care. At least, not as much as he did about the Big Ten Tournament bracket he was trying to decode. And certainly, not as much as he did a win over Purdue on March 1. He usually greets his mother, Tiaunna Briggans, with a high-five before games, but after that one he wrapped her in a hug. Because the 6-foot-2 senior guard had accomplished so much with the Buckeyes, except for one thing — and he was so close.
After four seasons, Thornton is now in the NCAA Tournament, as Ohio State was selected as a No. 8 seed in the East Region. It will play No. 9 TCU on Thursday in Greenville, S.C., in what will be the Buckeyes’ first appearance in March Madness in four years.
Just a few months after their 2022 NCAA Tournament Round of 32 exit, Thornton arrived on campus and immediately was named the team’s captain despite a soft-spoken persona. Yet first by pouring everything to himself, and then — when things did not look good for Ohio State’s at-large chances only several weeks ago — growing into his voice to pour more into others, he has led it back to this point. He simply needed the pieces around him to do it.
“Life comes with adversity,” Thornton says. “It just depends on what you do when adversity comes. And we just fought each and every day.”
There was a brief question, though, if the adversity was too much. When Thornton returned home to Atlanta in March 2025, Briggans says the idea of transferring came up. It was short-lived. After a conversation with Ohio State coach Jake Diebler, he was locked into his final season again.
He had gone through a lot with Diebler, whose rampant FaceTiming in the recruiting process stood out to Thornton. “(A lot) of times I was looking at a ceiling while he was playing video games,” Diebler says with a laugh. But Thornton says Diebler saw something in him even he didn’t see. He never expected Diebler to take over the team, though. Yet he was named the Buckeyes’ coach in March 2024 after Ohio State Chris Holtmann was fired midway through the 2023-24 season.
All this adversity taught Thornton how to fight. That proved valuable after Ohio State’s 74-54 loss to Iowa on Feb. 25. “Sometimes in college basketball, you just have them one-off games,” Thornton says. It was hard for anyone on the outside to project much good for the Buckeyes, as that marked a third loss in four games. But for Thorton and the Buckeyes, it was just “do or die.”
So after three-straight wins — first Purdue, then Penn State and Indiana — it was fitting that Ohio State would meet the Hawkeyes again. In the first round of the Big Ten Tournament on March 12, Ohio State led 72-69 as Iowa forward Alvaro Folgueiras stepped to the line for a one-and-one with 3.3 seconds left. He missed it, and the ball careened towards Thornton … yet not cleanly into his hands.
The ball bounded behind the three-point line as Thornton fell to the ground. Iowa’s Isaia Howard had a look from three-point range to tie, but the attempt missed. Thornton and the Buckeyes were in a good position headed into the conference tournament, but the Iowa win really sealed it.
Thornton sat up and leaned forward, grabbing at his ankles. The one-time All-Big Ten Third Teamer, two-time All-Big Ten Second Teamer and the greatest scorer in Ohio State history, finally, could exhale. As he reached out his hands, several were there immediately to grab them. And his teammates picked him up.
“People should be celebrating him,” Diebler says. “Because he is everything that’s right about college basketball right now.”
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