Ohio State freshman Sensabaugh shows off ‘ridiculous touch’
After all the scheming is done and the plans are installed, sometimes all that’s left is for someone to go out and get a bucket.
It’s not a skill every basketball player has, and even the elite ones have abilities to varying degrees. And seemingly on a nightly basis, Ohio State first-year forward Brice Sensabaugh is compiling a list of evidence that a special type of season is in the offing. Sunday night inside Welsh-Ryan Arena, Sensabaugh scored 16 of his gamehigh 18 points after halftime as the Buckeyes put up 73 points on a Northwestern defense that entered the night ranked No. 8 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com.
That kind of performance, against a defense rated that highly?
“He’s got ridiculous touch,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann, leaning against the wall outside his team’s locker room, told The Dispatch. “He’s just got ridiculous, God-given touch for a lot of different places on the floor.”
Sensabaugh’s 18 points came on 7 of 14 shooting and in spite of a pair of first-half fouls that limited him to eight minutes before the break. Ohio State’s leading scorer at 15.9 points per game, Sensabaugh had to watch as his teammates picked up the slack and jumped out to a 35-17 halftime lead against a team that had held three of its first 12 opponents to fewer than 50 points this season.
When the second half got underway, Holtmann had a quick talk with Sensabaugh in front of the team bench.
“He just basically said to me (that) he kept me out and he knows I like to play aggressive,” Sensabaugh said. “He was saying he held me out so now I’ve got two fouls going into the second half and now I can be aggressive again. I’m always going to put my trust in coach Holtmann and whatever he asks of me.”
He quickly made up for lost time, hitting a baseline jumper on the third possession of the half to push Ohio State’s lead to 21 points. By the first media timeout, he had five points, two rebounds and a blocked shot. In the final 3:19, Sensabaugh had seven points to fend off a late Northwestern charge, using his skill and 6-6, 235-pound frame to create separation against a physical, handsy Wildcat defense.
Sensabaugh’s ability to drive, get to the elbow area, rise up and hit a contested jumper bears more than a passing resemblance to a pair of former Buckeyes now on NBA rosters: Malaki Branham and E.J. Liddell, last season’s two leading scorers.
“Malaki had as good a touch as probably any kid I’ve coached,” Holtmann said of his first oneand-done player, a first-round pick by the San Antonio Spurs. “Brice is right there. E.J. too, but Malaki’s touch was his strength. Where he got in trouble was when teams were physical with him. And Brice is going to struggle in Big Ten play, but I thought our team did some really good things with him playing limited minutes.”
Branham’s well-documented, meteoric rise last season took him from a spot as an NBA draft afterthought when Big Ten play resumed in January to earning the league’s freshman of the year honors after averaging 17.0 points per game in the final 22 games of the season to finish at 13.7 for the year. His production steadily increased as the competition level did.
Thursday, Ohio State will host No. 1 Purdue at Value City Arena. The Boilermakers will be sporting their first blemish of the season, a Monday night home loss to Rutgers that will likely knock them from the nation’s top spot in next week’s Associated Press poll.
Sensabaugh enters the game sixth in the Big Ten in scoring and tops among freshmen, having scored in double figures in all but one game this season and topping the 20-point mark three times. He’s also sixth in the Big Ten in shooting percentage (52.4%) after having played his way into the starting lineup for the last five games.
Asked where the forward has shown the most growth since the start of the season, Holtmann couldn’t narrow it down much.
“Everything,” he said. “Effort. Understanding shot selection. His defense is growing — a lot. In a lot of ways he was so used in high school as just a scorer and now he’s standing, ‘I can continue to impact the game in other ways and I have to (in order) to be the kind of player I want to be.’ “
So while there’s still more growth that needs to happen, and the grind of the Big Ten is just starting, Sensabaugh is in position for a special season. He’s also taken home Big Ten freshman of the year honors in consecutive weeks, winning it Dec. 19 and 27.
“I give my glory to God on that one,” he said. “Just beyond that, credit to the coaching staff and my guys putting me in the right spots and putting their trust in me. It’s fun so far.”
And if Sensabaugh’s overall game continues to develop at this rate, this might be only the beginning.