The freshman from Reynoldsburg has far surpassed expectations for his first year of college basketball.
When the season began three months ago, John Mobley Jr. expected to play a lot of minutes for the Buckeyes during his freshman season. With Bruce Thornton and Meechie Johnson set to make up one of the better backcourts in the country, Mobley was going to be the primary guard backing up the pair of vets.
Due to unforeseen circumstances that led to Johnson stepping away from the team in December, Mobley has played considerably more than anyone, including him, could’ve expected.
The 6-foot-1, 175-pound guard came off the bench and for the first 10 games of the season played 20.7 minutes per game, while averaging 12.4 points per game and shooting 54% from beyond the arc. Since Johnson left the team, Mobley was thrust into the starting lineup and has been leaned on heavily. In the 16 games since then, the freshman is playing 29.3 minutes per game and averaging 13.8 points per game, and is averaging 2.4 made three-pointers per game.
Mobley has also been Ohio State’s best free throw shooter by a wide margin, going 61-for-67 (91%) at the charity stripe this season.
His performance thus far has given Ohio State fans extremely high hopes for Mobley’s future in Columbus, as well as caught the eyes of those in the national media. No Ceilings NBA has Mobley pegged as a mid to late second round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft in thanks to his seemingly limitless shooting range and improved on-ball defense compared to the beginning of the season. Big Ten Network’s Rapheal Davis, the 2015 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, even tweeted out last week that Mobley could go down as “the best shooter to ever play college basketball.”
John Mobley Jr. could end up being the best shooter to ever play college basketball.
— Rapheal Davis (@RaphealDavis3) February 13, 2025
The freshman’s offensive output thus far has him on track to potentially break multiple program records by the time the season wraps up.
At 91%, Mobley is on track to break both the Ohio State freshman free throw percentage record as well as the program single-season free throw percentage record. William Buford shot 84.9% from the line during the 2008-2009 season, which currently stands as the best mark for an Ohio State freshman. Mobley is currently 6.1% above that — he’s also taken more free throws than Buford did that entire season, so even if he was to miss a few down the stretch, Mobley will have some room for error to still set the record.
Mobley also has an opportunity to set the all-time record for free throw percentage during a season at Ohio State regardless of class. Jody Finney was an even 90% from the line for the Buckeyes during the 1968-1969 season, a year in which the junior guard averaged 13.3 points per game overall. In comparison, Mobley’s 91% would just barely set the record, if he was to maintain it for the final month-plus of the season.
The Ohio State record book does require 100 attempts to be listed as a leader in season-long percentage, so CJ Walker’s 94% during the 2020-2021 was not included, as he only took 84 free throws in 27 games. Mobley has taken 67 so far, so he would need to attempt 23 more over the final 7-plus games of the season to become eligible.
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Mobley is currently averaging 2.6 free throw attempts per game, so if he keeps with that same exact pace, Ohio State would need to play 13 more games for him to get to 100 and become eligible. He will probably need to get to the line just a smidge more to get to 100 attempts, but it is definitely attainable.
Depending on how far Ohio State goes in the Big Ten Tournament and the postseason, Mobley also has an opportunity to break D’Angelo Russell’s freshman record of 95 made three-pointers. During the 2014-2015 season, Russell — who went on to be the second overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, knocked down 95 three-pointers in 35 games for an Ohio State team that won 24 games and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Arizona.
Mobley has knocked down 66 three-pointers so far, which means he’ll need to hit 29 more to tie Russell and 30 more to pass him. The freshman nicknamed “The Sniper” by 247Sports in high school has four games this season where he’s knocked down five three-pointers, so he’s capable of burying them in bunches.
However, Ohio State technically only has seven games remaining on its schedule — five regular season, one Big Ten tournament game, and one postseason game, wherever that ends up being. Obviously, Mobley and the team are hoping to win the Big Ten Tournament and the national championship, which will give him many more opportunities to reach that record.
But if we’re only including games that we know for a fact will happen, Mobley will need to hit 29 more three-pointers in the seven remaining games, which means he’ll need to average 4.1 made three-pointers per game the rest of the way to tie Russell and 4.3 per game to pass him.
If Ohio State was to hypothetically go 1-1 in the Big Ten Tournament and 1-1 in the NCAA Tournament (or any other postseason tournament), that would lower the threshold a bit — he would need to hit 30 of them in 9 games, or just over three makes per game.
Despite being a bit undersized and being very well scouted by Big Ten opponents by now, Mobley just continues to produce at a high level as a freshman. He’s the latest of several Ohio State freshman to be ahead of schedule in recent years, including Malaki Branham and Brice Sensabaugh — both of whom wound up as one-and-done, first-round NBA Draft picks.
Ohio State fans are hoping Mobley etches his name into the record books this year, and are also hoping they’ll get to see him don the scarlet and gray for at least one more season.