Ohio State (9-3) wrapped up 2025 with an 89-63 win over Grambling State on Tuesday afternoon, but a trend that has become rather concerning over the last several games continued against the Tigers.
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Buckeyes were the fourth-best three-point shooting team in the Big Ten last season, hitting them at a 36.8% clip. During Big Ten media days this fall, Ohio State head coach Jake Diebler said that he expected his team to shoot “even better” from deep this season.
Through a dozen games, that has not been the case. Ohio State is currently at 33.7% from three this season, which is 15th in the Big Ten, ahead of only Rutgers, Washington, and Northwestern. Over the past six games, Ohio State has gone 3-3 and has shot 27.2% (34-for-125) from three.
That 27.2% includes Bruce Thornton’s big game against Illinois, when he went 6-for-9 from three, and John Mobley Jr.‘s hot shooting game against Grambling State on Tuesday, when he was 5-for-8 from long range.
The Buckeyes are 9-3, and have yet to really find their footing shooting the ball. Should we feel optimistic, because they’ve won nine of their first 12 without really being able to hit threes? Or should we be concerned, because without being able to knock down some threes, they’re not going to win many games in the Big Ten?
Last week, Connor and Justin debated whether freshman A’mare Bynum needed to be in the starting lineup against North Carolina.
Connor said yes, not because Bynum wasn’t playing enough off the bench, but because he needed to be on the floor at the beginning of the game to help the Buckeyes start the game off hot. Justin said Bynum did not need to be a starter, because it was much more important that he was on the floor at the end of the game than for the first few minutes.
Bynum did, in fact, start against Carolina, and did again vs. Grambling State on Tuesday night. In two starts, the freshman is averaging 11.5 points on 52.6% shooting, 7.5 rebounds, and two assists per game, while averaging 29 minutes per game in those two starts.
Back to the original topic: Ohio State’s shooting. Will the Buckeyes ever get their numbers back up to where we all expected them to be, or is what you see what you get?
This week’s question: Will Ohio State ever find its three-point shot again?
Connor: No
Despite having three starters shooting 38% or better from three-point range, Ohio State is still 15th in the Big Ten in three-point shooting? Why is that, when three of its five starters are shooting the ball well, including Bruce Thornton, who is at 44.1%?
It’s because the Ohio State coaching staff encourages everyone to shoot when they’ve got a good look, but not everyone on the team should be taking these shots.
Thornton, Devin Royal, and Mobley are shooting (collectively) 40.3% from three this season, which isn’t good, it’s great. However, those three account for 61.7% of Ohio State’s three-point attempts. That means the other 38.3% of three-point attempts must really be struggling, right?
Very much so.
The other eight players on the team that have attempted three-point shots this season have combined to shoot 22.9% this season. To have such a big chunk of your shot attempts produce so few points is a big reason why Ohio State has lost the games it has lost and been closer than it needed to be in games that it has won.
Even if Thornton, Mobley, and Royal keep at their 40%-ish pace or even get a bit better, there’s not a great argument for any other player on the team to get that much better from three-point land than they’ve been so far. At the very least, it will be tough to persuade me that Ohio State will surpass that 36.8% from last season.
Outside of their best three shooters, center Christoph Tilly has taken the most three-point tries of anyone else on the team (34). So far, he is 4-for-34 from beyond the arc, which is good for an 11.7% three-point percentage. For his career, Tilly was a 30.4% three-point shooter in his first three seasons, and was a 31.5% three-point shooter last season at Santa Clara.
Roughly 1/3 of the way through the season, it does not look like Tilly is going to meet that average. To match what he did last season, Tilly would need to hit 13 of his next 20 three-point tries, or 65% of his next 20. Teams are sagging off of him, double-teaming other players, and letting the big man shoot. His stats are falling so far below his career averages that it’s tough to see him salvaging his three-point percentage.
Bynum (30.4%), Brandon Noel (21.4%), and Gabe Cupps (23.1%) have all struggled from three as well. Since Noel and Cupps are coming off the bench, it’s tough to foresee them getting into a rhythm and bringing those numbers into the mid-30’s. Bynum is a candidate for some positive regression now that he’s in the starting lineup, but it is also difficult to assume a freshman will improve drastically when you shift from non-conference to Big Ten play (Malaki Branham and Brice Sensabaugh being the exceptions).
To be honest, I think Ohio State has three good three-point shooters on their team, and they are going to continue to allow several not great three-point shooters take a ton of them as the season goes on. As a unit, their team three-point percentage isn’t going to catch up to last year’s if everyone is given the freedom to take those shots all season long.
Justin: Yes
I am a large advocate for “water always finds its level” and I think that will be the case for this team. To be fair, the shooting numbers will fly up if two players just get back to their average number for their career — Brandon Noel and Christoph Tilly.
Noel is shooting 21.4% and Tilly is shooting 11.8% from three-point range this season. Coming into the season, Noel was shooting just over 38% and Tilly was shooting 31% for their careers.
Even though Noel has lost his starting spot to freshman Amare Bynum, he is still the sixth man on this team right now and they will need his scoring moving forward. Tilly is one of the key scorers on this team and they will need him to continue his strong play into conference play.
After the Grambling State win, where neither Noel nor Tilly shot a three-pointer, Jake Diebler told me the media “I told Tilly let’s maybe not start off (by) firing off threes, let’s maybe see the ball go through the hoop first, let’s play inside out.”
So it is likely that Tilly’s volume will go down (he is averaging 3.1 attempts per game, while in his career he averages 1.9), but that could help his efficiency if he sees some shots go through early.
Taison Chatman is shooting 66.7% from three-point range, but has only played 6.2 minutes per game so far this season. If he plays more, his shooting could help the Buckeyes overall numbers improve as well as his volume would go up.
I don’t think Tilly or Noel will end up as elite scorers or anything, but do think they will find their level as the season progresses.
