Roles remain in flux for Ohio State players
A game with 10 ties had just undergone its 10th lead change as Ohio State put the ball in the hands of its most dependable scorer. Northwestern had just scratched out a 48-47 lead with 8:27 remaining, and the time for Brice Sensabaugh to snap out of his struggles had arrived.
It had been an uncharacteristically rough night for the freshman, but in search of an 11th lead change, Sensabaugh put the ball on the floor, surveyed the Wildcat defense and looked for an opening. For a second, he might have seen something. It quickly disappeared as he picked up his dribble, shuffled his feet and was whistled for a traveling violation.
Seconds later, Ty Berry hit one of Northwestern’s 12 3-pointers, pushing the lead to four and helping cement what would become a 69-63 win for the Wildcats on Thursday night. It was just one of Ohio State’s 15 turnovers, four of which came from Sensabaugh, who in his second consecutive game off the bench experienced his most challenging game in weeks.
His final stat line underscored what has been an ongoing challenge for an Ohio State team that has now lost 10 of 11 games: It’s hard to solidify too many roles when the defeats are piling up. And sometimes even the players you’ve been banking on have off nights.
“The reality is, it’s hard,” Holtmann said. “Sometimes it depends on what the other team’s strengths are. Sometimes it depends on matchups.
Sometimes it depends on what you feel like you need in a given moment.”
Role definition has been a struggle for the Buckeyes. As Holtmann has trimmed his rotation to eight or nine players, that final spot has essentially rotated between third-year wing Gene Brown III and fourth-year Wright State transfer Tanner Holden. At Michigan, Brown played 13:41 off the bench while Holden was a healthy, unused substitute. Leading into the Northwestern game, Brown talked about the benefits of having a defined role, one that had been described to him as bringing his defensive versatility and his rebounding ability to the court for 10-15 minutes
a game.
Then against the Wildcats, Holden played 5:53 off the bench and Brown was an unused substitute.
“As much as anything you’re looking at, it can vary from game to game,” Holtmann said. “(Thursday) night, I felt like Tanner had practiced really well and gave us a chance to have some offense in situations with his cutting and moving.”
That leads to Sensabaugh, who ascended to the starting lineup when Isaac Likekele took a personal leave from the team starting with the Dec. 8 Big Ten opener against Rutgers. Sensabaugh started eight straight games, came off the bench at Rutgers on Jan. 15
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But in a Feb. 2 loss to Wisconsin, Sensabaugh fouled out in only 16:19, finishing with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting. Three days later, Holtmann brought him off the bench at Michigan and he scored 14 points on 14 shots before again fouling out. It was one of his least efficient games of the season, or at least it was until the loss to the Wildcats.
In his second consecutive game as a reserve, Sensabaugh missed seven of eight shots and tied his season-low with four points. It was just the second time he failed to score in double digits.
“He’s human, like everybody else,” freshman Bruce Thornton said. “He’s going to have nights when he’s on and nights when he’s off. We know what Brice is capable of doing every single night. He’s a tough-shot maker. I feel like he showed the world what he’s capable of doing. This don’t show who he really is.”
It does show the challenge of trying to find consistent minutes, lineups and rotations on a team still searching for answers.