In the age of constant college basketball roster turnover due to the combination of NIL and the transfer portal (revenue sharing forthcoming), Thornton has had ample opportunity to leave Ohio State. He would have been forgiven for seeking a bona fide contender after missing the NCAA Tournament with the Buckeyes for the third straight year, two of which he was their leading scorer.

But he stayed. 

“I just stand by my morals,” Thornton said. “I just believe in staying true to people who did well by you. I’ve always been like that, since I was young. Staying with the same teams, staying with the same group of people, my friends from back home. I just stay the course. And I always reaped the benefits of staying loyal, and just put it in God’s hands.”

Thornton’s career accolades are great, but he came back for his final year with his one and only college team with one object in mind: winning games. Or as Thornton’s shirt read and the Buckeyes’ new mantra goes, “Winning over everything.”

“I’m just trying to win games,” Thornton said. “I don’t care what else I do.”

“I just believe in staying true to people who did well by you. I’ve always been like that.”– Bruce Thornton on returning to Ohio State

Yes, Thorton is going to be compensated on the NIL and revenue share side, but loyalty is a commodity in the modern-day NCAA hoops landscape. Thornton could have easily sought compensation elsewhere. But he instead showed his loyalty in abundance.

He’s also a two-time second-team All-Big Ten selection and will almost certainly become the first four-time team captain in Ohio State history as a senior. He’s 10th all-time with the Buckeyes in career assists at 408, and will climb to No. 3 all-time if he matches his output of 148 (4.6 per game) last year. His 1,487 points are 21st in school history.

Last year was the best yet for Thornton. He evolved into a potent 3-point shooter, knocking down 42.4% of his looks from outside to help register a career-high 17.7 points per game. His overall field goal percentage was a career-high 50.1% as well. His perimeter defense was stout, too, helping the Buckeyes finish 22nd nationally in opposing 3-point percentage (30.5%).

Those numbers came with a workload of 36.2 minutes per game, the third-most of any player in the Big Ten. With John Mobley Jr. back as Thornton’s backcourt co-star and depth in Gabe Cupps, Taison Chatman and Mathieu Grujicic, Diebler hopes he can provide his bigger star with fresher legs down the stretch of 2025-26.

“As the season went on last year, we tried to move Bruce around in the half court because he was so efficient as a scorer,” Diebler said. “But it was a heavy load that we asked him to carry last year and being able to have guys create for him sometimes makes it easier for him and also made us harder to guard. So we feel like we have way more playmaking in general, which will be really helpful for us. There’s going to be a lot more space on the court, which is something we tried to do going into last season, but as the season wore on, we just weren’t able to do that at the level we wanted to.”

Last year was the closest Thornton and the Buckeyes have come to a return to the tourney in the past three seasons.

Ohio State entered the final month of its schedule well within the projected 68-team field, then lost five of its last seven games, including an immediate exit from the Big Ten Tournament against Iowa. Even if the Buckeyes had beaten Indiana in their final regular-season game, they would have collected a first-round bye in the conference tourney and likely made the Big Dance.

That’s why Thornton said the littlest details, from free-throw shooting to defensive communication to team chemistry, matter.

“It’s a margin of one possession; we would have been in the tournament,” Thornton said. “So I make sure I hold these guys to a high standard, make sure we do all the small details because it matters. You might not see it then, but it can come back to haunt you at the end of the season or at the end of the game.”

With Cupps transferring in from Indiana, Chatman returning from a season lost due to injury and Grujicic coming from overseas, Thornton’s backcourt support will look entirely different than it did in 2024-25. There will be two new starters in the frontcourt too, with power forward Brandon Noel from Wright State and center Christoph Tilly from Santa Clara.

“We’re gonna fit together because there’s no egos,” Thornton said. “When you have no egos, it makes the job way easier. So we don’t care who scores, how we score, we just want the job to get done at the end of the day. Because if we’re all winning, everybody eats.”

Thornton is entering his fourth year as Ohio State’s maestro, captain and star. He feels better at it than ever before. There’d be no player more deserving of an end to the Buckeyes’ NCAA Tournament drought – his and the team’s journey gets underway in November.

“I just use everything I’ve been through,” Thornton said. “In college basketball, I’ve been at the dead bottom, been high up. So I’m just telling these guys, ‘It’s a roller coaster, yo. You’ve just gotta stay the course the whole time. Everything will take care of itself.’”

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After what was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Oklahoma Sooners in 2025, Patty Gasso isn’t backing down from any challenges in 2026.

The Sooners will again compete in the loaded Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic during the 2026 college softball season after a one-year hiatus. The tournament recently released a long list of participants, including Auburn, BYU, Duke, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oregon, Oregon State, Rutgers, San Diego State, South Carolina, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UCLA, Utah, Washington and more.

Sooners will play in 2026 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic

The announced field included five teams that made the 2025 Women’s College World Series in OU, Texas, Texas Tech, Oregon and UCLA. Texas beat Texas Tech in the championship series after the Red Raiders knocked out OU in the semifinals. The Sooners and Texas won’t meet as SEC foes, but a rematch between OU and Tech seems like a likely matchup to set.

Another fun matchup would be OU taking on Nebraska, which has two former Sooners in Jordyn Bahl and Hannah Coor and nearly made the WCWS this past season.

The 2026 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic will be on Feb. 19-22 to start the new college softball season in Cathedral City, California. Last season, Gasso opted to start OU’s season in California still, but not in the challenging tournament with a brand new roster she had to figure. In 2026, though, the Sooners’ lineup will be loaded with returning talent and top transfer addition Sydney Berzon from LSU as their ace.

Read more about OU softball

USC Dealt Unfortunate News on 5-Star QB With $785K NIL Valuation originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Despite being the heavy favorite to land him throughout his recruitment, 2026 five-star quarterback Ryder Lyons ended up not picking the USC Trojans on Tuesday.

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USC head coach Lincoln Riley has arguably the best track record with quarterbacks in college football with names like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Caleb Williams all excelling under the now-former Oklahoma head coach.

However, when it came to the recruitment of Lyons, who ranks as the No. 13 player in the country, Riley ended up losing out on the talented gunslinger out of Folsom to the BYU Cougars.

The younger brother of USC tight end Walker Lyons announced his commitment on ESPN’s “Pat McAfee Show,” and also discussed what went into his decision.

Aside from the fact that BYU was the first program to offer him in the eighth grade, Lyons also expressed that he thinks they give him the best chance of making it to the NFL.

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“Money’s not the biggest part,” Lyons said. “The biggest part is making it to the NFL. Because that’s where the serious money is. That’s where long-term money is.”

According to 247Sports’ recruiting insider, Tom Loy, USC was the favorite until a “miscommunication” occurred.

Loy expressed that both USC and Lyons “faded off” from one another, leading to Lyons looking more seriously into other options.

This past season, Lyons was named California Gatorade Player of the Year.

He led Folsom to an 11-2 record, while throwing for 3,011 yards with 46 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. He also rushed the ball 118 times for 585 yards and 14 touchdowns.

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As for USC, they still hold a commitment from four-star Jonas Williams, which may have been the reason they weren’t constantly pushing for Lyons.

Related: Nation’s No. 2 QB Sounds Off on Texas’ Massive Five-Star Addition

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.

More than a month has passed since the Warriors’ season ended in the second round of the NBA playoffs. A week later, they already began hosting players at Chase Center on their practice court for pre-draft workouts. 

The Warriors mainly have studied older players with an abundance of college experience for their second-round pick at No. 41 overall. There’s always more to the year-long process behind closed doors. The way the draft has been affected by the changing landscape of college basketball with NIL, though, it would be a major surprise if a player younger than even 22 years old was drafted by the Warriors. 

Trayce Jackson-Davis (No. 57 overall) was 23, and turning 24 in February, when the Warriors drafted him in the second round of the 2023 draft. Quinten Post (No. 52 overall) was even older at 24, and turning 25 in March, last year as the Warriors’ second-round pick.

Hearing a teenager have his name called when the Warriors are on the clock is highly, highly unlikely if they keep the pick and use it. A cheap player that can contribute as a rookie is of major value for a team like the Warriors. 

“It does lend itself to the older guys generally can play sooner than later,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy admitted Monday at Chase Center.

The chaos of the NBA offseason already knocked down the door and has made itself at home. Now that it’s time for the draft to be part of the headlines for two days, here are the five best fits for the Warriors with the 41st pick in the draft.

Sion James, Wing, Duke

He’s the one singular prospect that I wrote about as being the perfect fit for the Warriors, and it will take some serious convincing to change my mind. 

James played four seasons at Tulane, then transferred to Duke as the exact player needed around their trio of freshmen players primed for the top 10 in the draft. Dunleavy laid out the formula Monday of needing defense – point of attack plus rim protectors – and players who can space the floor. James has the size and physicality to jump into an NBA game right now, and he’s only improved as a shooter every season in college. 

An easy comparison is Lu Dort with a lot more college experience. They’re both built like football players who were handed a basketball as a joke just to laugh in everybody else’s face. Dort is listed at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, was named to the All-Defensive First Team and shot 41.2 percent from three for the champion Oklahoma City Thunder this season after shooting 23.7 percent as a rookie. 

At 22 years old, 23 in December, James played 153 college games. He measured in at the combine at 6-foot-4 1/2 and 217 pounds, was voted to the ACC’s All-Defense Team this season, and after shooting 28 percent from three as a freshman, James was a 41.3 percent 3-point shooter in his one year at Duke.

Koby Brea, SG/Wing, Kentucky

Shooting and scoring dropped off a cliff to end the Warriors’ season with an injured Steph Curry. Adding perhaps the draft’s best pure shooter, outside of Kon Knueppel, could be a good start in fixing that problem. 

Brea doesn’t project to be a two-way player like Klay Thompson was. His athleticism doesn’t jump out, even on highlights. But damn can he shoot it. 

He also has ideal size on the wing as a shooting guard or small forward at 6-foot-7 and 215 pounds. Like James, Brea was a five-year player in college. Also like James, his age shouldn’t be a negative for someone who will be 23 in November. This is a smart player who will know how to play his role, and not step outside of it. 

The marksman shot 43.4 percent on threes in his college career, including making 46.5 percent of his threes the past two seasons while putting up six a game.

Micah Peavy, Wing, Georgetown

Peavy is the type of player that would fit a long list of second-round picks that had lasting, solid, impactful careers in the NBA. He’s the glue guy every team wants. 

That was obvious with Peavy’s performance in his first scrimmage at the combine. His team lost by three, yet Peavy was a game-high plus-20 in 23 minutes. Peavy, who turns 24 on July 16, is a versatile wing at 6-foot-7 and 215 pounds with the feel and skills to be part of a rotation. The big question is if his 3-point shot was a one-hit wonder. 

After four years in college, one at Texas Tech and three at TCU, Peavy shot 26.7 percent from three. Year by year, he also became a more willing shooter from deep. Then in his fifth college season, Peavy transferred to Georgetown and averaged 17.2 points, put up over four threes a game and made 40 percent of them.

Chaz Lanier, G/Wing, Tennessee

The first three years of Lanier’s college career didn’t amount to numbers of someone who would be on any draft boards. Lanier averaged just 4.2 points per game in that span at Florida Atlantic, and then his breakout came in Year 4. Finally fully entrenched in the starting lineup, was All-A-Sun First Team in 2023-24, averaging 19.7 points while shooting 51 percent from the field, 44 percent from three and 88 percent at the free-throw line. 

Lanier then joined Tennessee for his fifth and final college season, where that same offensive firepower followed him to the Vols. The 23-year-old who will turn 24 in December led Tennessee to the Elite Eight by averaging 18 points per game and shooting 39.5 percent beyond the arc. Lanier in his final two college seasons shot 41.5 percent from long distance while taking essentially eight threes per game. 

There are some defensive questions when it comes to Lanier for a player listed at 6-foot-4. But he rarely came off the floor for one of the top defenses in college basketball, and his 6-foot-9 wingspan and 39-inch max vertical leap gives him the traits that can produce a competent defensive player.

Alijah Martin, G, Florida

Guards Kam Jones and Tamar Bates were both considerations here. In the end, it came down to two players: Martin, or Kentucky big man Amari Williams. 

The Warriors worked out both players, who are 10 inches apart. Williams would be the second straight 7-footer Dunleavy picked in the second round. However, he’s a much different player than Post. 

As seen throughout his rookie year, Post is a stretch-five but has work to do defensively and around the rim, and likely will never be a plus athlete. Williams is not a shooter. He’s a massive shot-blocker and strong rebounder. Most importantly for Steve Kerr, Williams is a really strong player out of the middle. 

Center, as always, will be an incredibly interesting position to watch for the Warriors. They don’t want Draymond Green to start there, but he still will have minutes at center when necessary. They’re high on Post, and like a lot of what Jackson-Davis brings. Kevon Looney still could come back on a veteran minimum, and the Warriors will be active eyeing bigs through other avenues as well. 

So instead, Martin is the pick. He’s only 6-foot-2, but plays way bigger with his 6-foot-8 wingspan. Jerry Stackhouse would be begging Kerr to unleash this Pitbull. Martin is a high-energy super-athlete who was a huge reason why Florida won it all this year. 

After four years at Florida Atlantic where Martin twice was All-CUSA, as well as the 2023 CUSA Tournament MVP, he averaged 14.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game as a fifth-year senior. Martin turns 24 in December, can be in the Gary Payton II role for the Warriors long term, and might offer more offense.

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Will Wade’s work building NC State into an immediate winner included the pursuit of an entrant in the NBA Draft, just in case he returned to college.

It wasn’t a huge risk: With all the cash flowing in college, the number of early entrants to the NBA Draft has continued to shrink. This year’s draft starts Wednesday night with its lowest total of those prospects in at least 10 years.

“Now you can play the long game a little bit more,” Wade told The Associated Press, referring to how college players can look at their futures. “Look, I can get paid the same I would get paid in the G League, the same I would get paid on a two-way (contract), some guys are getting first-round money.”

And more money is on the way.

It’s been four years since college athletes were permitted to profit off the use of their name, image and likeness, opening the door for athlete compensation that was once forbidden by NCAA rules. Next week, on July 1, marks the official start of revenue sharing where schools can begin directly paying athletes following the $2.8 billion House v. NCAA antitrust settlement.

For Wade, that led to signing Texas Tech forward Darrion Williams after 247Sports’ fifth-ranked transfer withdrew from the draft.

“Basically now if you’re an early entry and you’re not a top-20, top-22 pick — where the money slots — you can pretty much make that in college,” the new Wolfpack coach said.

It’s all part of a seismic change that has rippled through college athletics since covid-19, its impact touching the NBA. Players willing to “test the waters” in the draft before returning to school now have a lucrative option to consider against uncertain pro prospects.

And it shows in the numbers.

“With all the money that’s being thrown around in NIL, you’re having a lot less players put their names in,” Detroit Pistons President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon said. “You’re having pretty good players pulling their names out.”

This year’s drop in early entrants is significant when compared to the years before anyone had heard of covid-19. There was a spike of college players jumping into the draft in the pandemic’s aftermath, when they were granted a free eligibility year to temporarily make even a fourth-year senior an “early” entrant.

But those numbers had fallen as those five-year players cycled out of college basketball, and they’re now below pre-pandemic levels. That decline coincides with NIL’s July 2021 arrival, from athletes doing paid appearances or social-media endorsements to boosters forming collectives offering NIL packages amounting to de facto salaries.

As a result:

Eighty-two players appeared on the NBA’s list of early entrants primarily from American colleges with a smattering of other teams, down 49% from 2024 (162) and nearly 47% compared to the four-year average from 2016-19 (153.5);

Thirty-two remained after withdrawal deadlines, down from 62 last year and 72.0 from 2016-19;

Adding international prospects, 109 players declared for the draft, down from 201 last year and 205.0 from 2016-19;

And only 46 remained, down from 77 in 2024 and 83.8 from 2016-19.

Duke Coach Jon Scheyer understands draft dynamics, both for no-doubt headliners and prospects facing less clarity. He sees college athlete compensation as a “legitimate gamechanger.”

“Hopefully it allows players to decide what’s truly best for their game,” Scheyer told the AP. “It allows them to analyze: ‘Am I actually ready for this or not?’ Where money doesn’t have to be the deciding factor. Because if money’s the deciding factor, that’s why you see kids not stick. The NBA’s cutthroat. It just is.”

The Blue Devils are expected to have three players selected in the first round Wednesday, including presumptive No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg alongside top-10 prospects Khaman Maluach and Kon Knueppel. They also had players sorting through draft decisions.

Isaiah Evans — a freshman wing with explosive scoring potential — withdrew instead of chasing first-round status through the draft process. Incoming transfer Cedric Coward from Washington State rapidly rose draft boards after the combine and remained in the draft.

“There’s no substituting the money you’re going to make if you’re a top-15, top-20 pick,” said Scheyer, entering his fourth season as successor to retired Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. “But if you’re not solidified as a first-round pick, why risk it when you can have a solid year and a chance to go up or be in the same position the following season?”

Langdon, himself a former Duke first-rounder, sees that evolution, too.

His Pistons had their first playoff appearance since 2019, but lack a first-round selection and own a single pick in Thursday’s second round. Fewer candidates could make the already imperfect science of drafting even trickier in this new reality.

According to the NBA’s 2024-25 rookie scale, a player going midway through the first round would make roughly $3.5 million in first-year salary. That figure would drop to about $2.8 million at pick No. 20, $2.3 million at No. 25 and $2.1 million with the 30th and final first-round draftee.

A minimum first-year NBA salary? Roughly $1.2 million.

“These NIL packages are starting to get up to $3 to $4 to $5 to $6 million dollars,” Langdon said. “These guys are not going to put their name in to be the 25th pick, or even the 18th pick. They are going to go back to school in hopes of being a lottery pick next year. With that pool of players decreasing, it kind of decreases the odds of the level of player we get at No. 37, just the pure mathematics.”

Indiana Pacers big man Thomas Bryant and Oklahoma City Thunder counterpart Isaiah Hartenstein, who both played in the seven-game NBA Finals that ended Sunday, illustrate Langdon’s point.

They were back-to-back second-rounders in 2017 — Bryant at 42, Hartenstein at 43 — pushed down a draft board featuring early entry college players in 33 of the 41 picks before them.

Bryant played two college seasons at Indiana before stints with five NBA teams, including Denver’s 2023 championship squad. Would the ability to make college money have changed his journey?

“To be honest, I see it from both sides,” Bryant said. “If you’re not going to get drafted, you understand that a kid needs money to live in college and everything. So, I understand where they’re coming from on that end.

“But for me, I took the chance. I bet on myself, and I believed in myself, and I worked to the very end. And the thing about me is that if I went down, I was going down swinging. I hang my hat on that. For some, it might not be the same case.”

The American-born Hartenstein moved to Germany at 11 and played in Lithuania before being drafted. As he put it: “I think everyone’s journey is different.”

“I think you should have the right people around you to kind of guide you,” said Hartenstein, a newly minted NBA champion. “I mean, I was lucky that my dad, who was a professional before, kind of guided me. Depending on your circumstances, it’s hard to turn down guaranteed money. If there’s an opportunity to get in a good situation in the NBA, you do that. But it’s a hard decision.”

At NC State, Wade’s pitch to Williams included a leading role and a shot at boosting his draft stock.

The 6-6 junior averaged 15.1 points with multiple big NCAA Tournament performances as the Red Raiders reached the Elite Eight, nearly beating eventual champion Florida.

“He was most likely going to be a second-round draft pick, and his package here is better than probably he would’ve gotten as a second-round pick,” Wade said, adding: “We certainly talked about that. We went over that. We went over the math of everything. We went over the plan on how to accomplish that.”

That’s not to say it’s easy at the college level in this new landscape. Roster management is tricky, including a balancing act of maintaining financial resources to potentially land one player while risking missing out on others.

“It’s the way life works, it’s the way it should work,” Wade said. “If there’s no risk, there’s no reward. The riskiest players, in terms of waiting on the money and waiting them out, are the best players. That’s why they’re in the draft process. We’re not going to be scared of that.”

Nor should he, not with the allure of campus life these days.