Jake Diebler’s first NCAA Tournament game as a head coach ended with a failed final play with a chance to tie or win the game.
After TCU’s Xavier Edmonds scored inside to give the Horned Frogs a 66-64 lead with 4.3 seconds left on the clock, Ohio State took its final timeout to draw up a play. The play Diebler and the Buckeyes drew up didn’t work, however, as Bruce Thornton was forced to heave a desperation shot from halfcourt, resulting in a two-point loss.
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Instead of looking for a longer pass to start the possession, Thornton inbounded the ball to Christoph Tilly with Tilly quickly passing the ball back to Thornton. There were less than four seconds remaining on the clock by the time the ball got back in Thornton’s hands, and as two TCU defenders focused their attention on Thornton, the Ohio State point guard didn’t get a clear path to dribble down the court, forcing the Buckeyes’ all-time leading scorer to shoot the ball before he even reached the midcourt line.
In his postgame press conference, Diebler said the Buckeyes wanted the ball in their senior captain’s hands on the final possession. Diebler said Ohio State gave Thornton the freedom to decide whether to throw the ball down the court to Amare Bynum or Devin Royal or take a shot himself. Video of the play shows that Royal would have potentially been open for a shot had Thornton passed the ball instead, but it’s uncertain whether there would have been enough time for Royal to catch and shoot before the buzzer.
“We got the ball to Bruce on the run. We had two outlets down the floor for a throw ahead. I was watching him with the ball, so it was hard to see if those guys were open or not. I thought TCU corralled the ball well, and maybe that limited his ability to get the ball down the floor. But we were trying to get it to him on the run and give him freedom to make a decision,” Diebler said. “And had a couple outlets down the floor that if he felt like he could get it to them, we wanted to get it to them to either get a look or, if we could get it up there quick enough, use a timeout to set up in the halfcourt.”
Ohio State was out of timeouts, so even if Thornton had gotten across halfcourt sooner, the Buckeyes wouldn’t have been able to use another timeout to set up a better play.
Asked about the final play by reporters in the locker room after the game, Thornton said he simply ran out of time to get a better look, needing to go the length of the court and the way TCU was defending him. Thornton felt the Buckeyes’ previous defensive possession and their poor performance in the first half, in which TCU outscored Ohio State 39-24, led to the loss more than the final play.
“We just didn't get the stop that we needed (on TCU’s last possession). It's hard with the time, with a full court shot and four seconds left,” Thornton said. “It wasn‘t the look I wanted, but they cupped the ball. They did a good job cupping the ball. It's just hard to get three dribbles on the other side of the court when somebody just guards you full court.”
