OSU’S Key hopes for full recovery

Zed Key wasn’t about to add insult to what would become a season-ending injury.

Situated on the left block in the opening minutes of a home game with No. 1 Purdue, the Ohio State center was attempting to box out Zach Edey as Caleb Furst missed a free throw. When the 7-4 Edey reached over the 6-8 Key, the Buckeye came away from the contact holding his left shoulder and clearly in pain. Play continued, and as the ball made its way to Ethan Morton, Edey was unguarded near the elbow as Key stood under the basket and away from the action.

Morton saw Edey and fed him a pass. With pain coursing through his body, Key made a swipe at the big man before clearly getting out of (further) harm’s way.

“I tried to make a play,” Key said, “and then I saw Zach Edey get the ball in the paint and I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not getting dunked on and hurt.’ ”

The pain was immediate, but the final outcome was not. Diagnosed with a left shoulder sprain, Key missed the subsequent game, returned for the next 11 and then had to shut it down. Thursday, he will undergo surgery that will sideline him for 4-6 months.

Key said the surgery is to repair his labrum but didn’t know too many specifics.

“All the doctor terms? OK, cool. I don’t get into that,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

For Key, it was still a career year statistically. He finished having averaged 10.8 points and 7.5 rebounds in 24.8 minutes per game, and his numbers were gaudier before the injury. Albeit largely in non-conference play, he started the season averaging 13.4 points and 8.4 rebounds while shooting 69.8% on 2-point field goals. Those totals dropped to 8.8, 7.2 and 46.3%, respectively, in the 11 games when he was hurt.

“I use my shoulders a lot to get the defender off my body,” Key said. “There’s a lot of jumping, grabbing rebounds, people going under your arms. I use my left hand a lot with jump hooks. Even with the brace on, it definitely affected it a lot because I knew I wasn’t 100%, and the shots that were falling in the beginning of the year that I knew I could make, it just wasn’t falling.”

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said it remains to be seen if Key can play a full season while being as productive as he was prior to the injury.

“He’s had moments later in the season (in prior years) where his production has dropped off and some of that has been his conditioning,” the coach said. “My challenge for him was to finish this well. I do think he was on a good trajectory before the injury. I think he had good moments, but there’s still a lot for Zed to grow in. He has to get better in a lot of areas.

“He knows that. I think he can.” Holtmann also believes Key and 6-11 freshman Felix Okpara will be able to coexist on the court instead of being either/or players. But that will require Key to further develop his perimeter skills.

“He will not have a full summer, but I still think we can get him to where he needs to get to get to play those two guys together, I really do,” Holtmann said. “It’ll be somewhat limited, but it’s still going to be a very critical offseason.”

And there’s at least one other area in which Key hopes to grow.

“I’m not really going to go into detail,” he said, “but there’s some (leadership) stuff that you would want to go right or you would want to do different.

“That’s in the past. You move on. You learn from your mistakes. (I’m) learning from that.”