In the transfer portal era, what Bruce Thornton has done has become a bit of an anomaly. Despite not having yet made the NCAA Tournament, Thornton, who has made 2 All-Big Ten teams, has stayed all four years at Ohio State. He’s averaged at least 10 points a game in all four seasons, and he’s started 112 career games at the time of this writing.
Arguably the most impressive thing is he’s continued improving every season.
He’s currently averaging 21.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 turnovers a game. He’s also shooting a career high from both 2s and 3s. He’s shooting 67.6% from 2 on 7.1 attempts a game, and he’s shooting 50% from 3 on 5.2 attempts a game.
If the season were to end today, Bruce Thornton would be the first player to ever meet the following criteria for a season:
20 points per game
4 assists per game
Less than 1.5 turnovers a game
60%+ from 2
40%+ from 3
To say that Bruce Thornton has been efficient would be a big understatement. He’s been one of the most efficient players in the entire country. He has the 9th best offensive rating per Kenpom in the country, and only Yaxel Lendeborg has a usage rate above 20%, like Bruce Thornton, out of the 8 ahead of Thornton.
The obvious caveat is that Thornton has only played about 30% of his season, and Ohio State has played the 195th toughest schedule so far in the country, including the 327th toughest non-conference schedule. So maybe as the competition gets tougher, some of the efficiency will fall off, but the fact remains, Bruce Thornton has been hyper efficient this season.
Thornton has improved a lot on the margins this season, and Ohio State has also been more deliberate about working him off ball into scoring opportunities.
Below shows the percentage of Thornton’s field goal ATTEMPTS in each area. The first one shows this season, and the second one shows last season.
From last year to this season, Bruce Thornton has increased his three point attempt rate by five percent, and he’s increased his rim rate by 8.6%. His mid-range rate has decreased by 8.2%.
Thornton is taking higher quality looks, and he’s converting them at a higher rate too. Thornton is at 50% on 3s, up 7.6% from when he shot 42.4% from three last season. He’s also shooting 75% at the rim, up 14.6% from 60.4% last season.
Thornton has been much more efficient in the paint this season than last. Currently he’s 42/58 (72.4%) inside of the paint. Last season he was 93/164 (56.7%) on shots inside the paint. That’s nearly a 16% increase on those types of shots.
Basically any stat that you want to look at would show that Bruce Thornton, someone who was already very efficient last season, has become even more efficient while still having a fairly large usage. Right now, Thornton is doing all he can to get to the NCAA Tournament, and Ohio State is going to need everything from him to do so.
I broke down the film on how Ohio State has been using Bruce Thornton above, but I’ll show some more of the numbers here.
