Buckeyes beat Green Bay in nonconference action

COLUMBUS — Ohio State continues to plow through its mid-major portion of the nonconference slate. The latest win came Monday night over Green Bay inside the Schottenstein Center. And the Buckeyes scored more than 100 points for the second straight game after doing it Friday night against Campbell.

Final score: Buckeyes 102, Green Bay 69.

Bruce Thornton led all scorers with a game-high 25 points on a historic night for the talented guard. He crossed the 1,000-career point mark in just his 76th career game with the Buckeyes, who improved to 5-1 on the season with the lone loss coming at Texas A&M. Thornton was certainly the star of the game, but he wasn’t alone.

Thornton was one of seven Buckeyes in double figures scoring the basketball. Evan Mahaffey and Micah Parrish and Devin Royal each had 10, Sean Stewart had 11, John Mobley Jr. had 14 and Meechie Johnson had 17 for the Buckeyes in the win. Royal had 11 rebounds to notch a double-double for Ohio State, too.

Ohio State is off for a few days before its next game, a home date against Pittsburgh. The rest of the month of November and into December has some intriguing matchups for the Buckeyes:

Nov. 29 vs. Pittsburgh
Dec. 4 at Maryland
Dec. 7 vs. Rutgers
Dec. 14 vs. Auburn (State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia)
Dec. 17 vs. Valparaiso
Dec. 21 vs. Kentucky (Madison Square Garden, New York, New York)
Dec. 29 vs. Indiana State

Ohio State already has a win over a ranked team for an early-season resume booster. That came in the opener against Texas. Then the Buckeyes lost at Texas A&M last Friday to fall back out of the rankings.

The Buckeyes won their third straight nonconfrence game on Monday night, however. Ohio State will look to make it four on Friday — but it will take a step up in competition when Pittsburgh comes to Columbus.