Tre Johnson breaks Kevin Durant’s debut scoring record, but No. 19 Texas falls to Ohio State, 80-72

The freshman phenom dazzled scoring 29 points in his first game, breaking Kevin Durant’s team scoring record for a collegiate debut, but Johnson’s teammates let him down in the loss.

If there’s any way to live up to the lofty albeit qualified comparisons of Texas Longhorns freshman guard Tre Johnson to Kevin Durant made regularly by head coach Rodney Terry, Johnson did it on Monday in breaking Durant’s team record for most points in a debut — the nation’s No. 6 prospect in the 2024 recruiting class dropped 29 points, nine more than Durant against Alcorn State in 2006.

For the No. 19-ranked Longhorns, however, the end result was an 80-72 loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Hall of Fame Las Vegas Opening Night event in which Johnson’s teammates couldn’t perform well enough against the Buckeyes absent graduate transfer wing Tramon Mark, out with a right ankle sprain.

An opening 8-0 run by Ohio State set the tone for the game flow as Texas never led or even managed to tie the game. As poorly as the slow started boded for the Horns, a scoring drought of 5:53 that featured 10 straight missed shots — three threes and seven jumpers — boded even more poorly as the Buckeyes went on a 15-0 run that included three straight made threes to achieve the biggest lead of the game at 18 points.

Never efficient enough on both ends in a way complementary enough to actually take the lead or get closer than three points, Texas went into halftime down seven points before it cut the lead to three 3:01 into the second half thanks to threes from Johnson and junior guard Jordan Pope.

But the rotations weren’t crisp defensively on consecutive possessions, resulting in a dunk and a layup. The Horns managed to get consecutive stops by forcing jumpers, but then gave up a three to Buckeyes freshman guard John Mobley Jr., who hit all four of his three-point attempts in his own sizzling collegiate debut.

The offense wasn’t helping at that point, either, as Texas went into a shooting drought from the field that lasted 5:09 and featured seven misses — four three pointers and three jumpers.

The Longhorns were lucky to only be down six points when Johnson ended the stretch of missed shots from the field because of five free throws and an inability by the Buckeyes to capitalize on the opportunity to break the game open.

A more positive stretch for Texas offensively took advantage, started by a wonderful pass by Johnson in transition — the freshman sensation moved the Ohio State defense towards the perimeter with his eyes and body position, creating the space to deliver a bounce pass right into the pocket of senior transfer forward Arthur Kaluma, who finished through contact and converted the three-point play.

Johnson’s intent seeking trail plays in transition or on the secondary break for long step-in threes paid off when he forced a foul in just such a situation and hit all three at the line. Then junior guard Chendall Weaver hit a contested jumper of questionable quality and took a higher-quality approach by turning the corner hard off a ball screen and getting to the rim for a layup.

When super senior forward Kadin Shedrick threw down a dunk about 45 seconds later, Texas was within three points and the win probability for Ohio State was down to 63 percent.

But the Buckeyes had just received a boost when forward Devin Royal beat the shot clock by making a difficult, contested shot just outside the paint. And Despite the dunk, the play seemed to galvanize Royal and his teammates — wing Micah Parrish hit a three 30 seconds later, Royal got loose at the rim for a layup, star guard Bruce Thornton hit a tough jumper against strong defense from Weaver, and Royal hit a three.

The 10-2 run over 2:36 extended the lead to 71-59, at which point the win probability for the Buckeyes pushed past 96 percent. With 5:13 remaining, the game was effectively over.

Thornton looked every bit of the experienced junior star, leading Ohio State with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-4 shooting from three and 3-of-3 shooting from the free-throw line, while adding four rebounds, three assists, and a steal.

As a team, the Buckeyes shot 14-of-28 from three-point range, finishing with a plus-21 advantage in three-pointers made as the Longhorns misfired to a 7-of-28 shooting night from distance, just 25 percent. And that’s including the 5-of-10 performance by Johnson, who turned in a strong all-around performance reflective of his developed game — he wasn’t just efficient from the field (10-20) and the line (4-5), he also had five rebounds, four assists, two steals, a block, and only one turnover despite his high usage rate of 32.9, one of his most remarkable achievements in his record-setting debut.

The difference in the quality of the supporting casts around Thornton and Johnson were extraordinarily evident — Ohio State scored 33 bench points compared to 10 by Texas, which got 2-of-11 shooting for 10 points in 44 bench minutes with the only quality coming from a 10-point, five-assist performance from graduate transfer guard Julian Larry, who also added stellar effort defensively.

Shedrick did score 10 points, but it took him 12 shot attempts while finishing minus-10. And senior transfer forward Arthur Kaluma added 10 points of his own, but he also turned the ball over three times and finished minus-14.

The absence of impact from junior transfer guard Jordan Pope was particularly noticeable, as he finished with five points on 2-of-8 shooting, hitting just 1-of-6 threes, and only dishing out two assists in 22 largely ineffective minutes, indicative of the lack of ball movement that defined the Texas offense too often, as did missed threes with a 2-of-18 performance by the Longhorns other than Johnson. Adding the percentage onto that isn’t necessary to determine that it’s bad.

Beyond Johnson’s unsurprising arrival as an extraordinarily impactful player — not just scorer — perhaps the biggest takeaway from the season-opening loss to begin a non-conference schedule with few opportunities for quality wins is that Texas needs Mark to be a quality scorer and needs to perform much better in the margins around Johnson.

The flip side of the non-conference schedule is that the Horns will have plenty of tuneups before opening Big 12 play. Given the roster turnover and difficulties maintaining full health and availability through the preseason, the wisdom of that decision is already making its first appearance.

Texas makes its season debut at the Moody Center against one of those opponents on Friday when Houston Christian comes to Austin.