The last six Buckeye box scores have something in common. And it’s not wins or losses.
Ohio State’s leading scorer in each contest has been a true freshman, and one in particular. En route to three Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors, Brice Sensabaugh has dropped 20 or more points in four of his past six performances with opponents like North Carolina, then-No. 1 Purdue and Maryland all standing witness. Even in the two games that Sensabaugh didn’t crack 20 points, he still paced the Buckeyes in scoring.
You might as well get used to it, because Sensabaugh isn’t slowing up. In fact, he only seems to be picking up steam as the Buckeyes near the halfway point of the 2022-23 campaign.
“At the end of the day, he’s a bucket-getter. I think sometimes you can overanalyze it, but some guys have a gift. And I think he has it.”– Jake Diebler on Brice Sensabaugh
Sensabaugh hasn’t just been good by freshman standards this season. The first-year sensation not only leads the Buckeyes with his average of 16.7 points per game, but he’s also the seventh-place scoring leader in the entire Big Ten. Only 26 forwards in the country are averaging more points than the Orlando, Florida, native, and just two previous players in the Chris Holtmann era at Ohio State (Keita Bates-Diop and E.J. Liddell) have finished a season with a higher scoring average.
Needless to say, those accolades belie Sensabaugh’s age. But if you want to place a freshman tag on him, his exploits are made all the more impressive.
In terms of scoring, Sensabaugh is the top freshman in the conference. Michigan’s Jett Howard is second with an average of 14.3 points per game, but he’s not the Wolverines’ top scorer (Hunter Dickinson, 18.7 points per game), and Howard ranks six places below Sensabaugh on the Big Ten’s overall leaderboard.
| PLAYER | TEAM | POS | PPG | FG% | 247 COMP RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRANDOn MILLER | ALABAMA | F | 19.1 | 43.3 | 14th (Five-star) |
| KEYONTE GEORGE | BAYLOR | G | 16.8 | 38.2 | 8th (Five-star) |
| BRICE SENSABAUGH | OHIO STATE | F | 16.7 | 51.7 | 65th (Four-star) |
| NATE CALMESE | LAMAR | G | 16.4 | 44.7 | N/A |
| JUDAH MINTZ | SYRACUSE | G | 15.9 | 44.3 | 45th (Four-star) |
Across all Division I conferences, Sensabaugh ranks 117th in scoring. That figure isn’t quite jaw-dropping until you consider that only two freshmen in the nation rank higher. Alabama’s Brandon Miller is the country’s leading freshman scorer with an average of 19.1 points per game, and Baylor’s Keyonte George is putting up a fraction more than Sensabaugh at 16.8.
That’s it. That’s the list.
“His mentality from an offensive standpoint is special. I think he’s got high-level belief in himself,” Ohio State assistant coach Jake Diebler said this past Friday. “We’ve seen guys come through our program who have had similar belief, and they’ve had a lot of success because I think we give guys freedom to do that. I think the second part is he works really hard. One of the things that we’ve had success with in our player development program is helping guys elevate their work ethic and work capacity, and he’s really bought into that, spends a lot of extra time.
“And quite honestly, he’s earned the right to play well and to score how he has. His willingness to grow and be coached and his work ethic, and at the end of the day, he’s a bucket-getter. I think sometimes you can overanalyze it, but some guys have a gift. And I think he has it.”
But there’s a big difference between Miller and George and Sensabaugh. The first two were five-star prospects in the 2022 class, with Miller ranking 14th in the country and George coming in at No. 8. Sensabaugh was a top-65 recruit in his own right, but only a four-star by comparison. Even Howard ranked higher than Sensabaugh as the 42nd-ranked recruit in the cycle.
That means Sensabaugh is averaging more points than all but two of the players ranked ahead of him in the 247Sports composite, including both of his more highly touted teammates; Roddy Gayle (No. 42) and Bruce Thornton (No. 51).
Perhaps the primary reason Sensabaugh flew under the radar on the recruiting trail, relatively speaking, was a meniscus injury that cost him his entire junior year of high school basketball.
“I thought he was really, really good as a 10th grader, and he probably would’ve risen up the recruiting rankings a little bit earlier, but then he was hurt,” Sensabaugh’s high school coach, Ben Fratrik, told Eleven Warriors before the start of his senior season. “I just don’t think many people were aware of how talented he was because he spent so much time on the shelf.”
Well, they’re taking notice now.
Sensabaugh has been a far more efficient shooter than either of the freshmen who average more points than him. Hitting 51.7% of his field goals so far, Sensabaugh is the third-most accurate shooter on the Buckeye roster. The only Buckeyes with higher percentages are centers Zed Key (64.5%) and Felix Okpara (58.5%). That’s especially impressive given Sensabaugh attempts the most shots of anyone on the roster (11.9 per game).
Meanwhile, Miller and George are shooting just 43.3% and 38.2%, respectively, for Alabama and Baylor.
The 6-foot-6 wing has also been money from the 3-point line. Among Buckeyes who have played in more than five games and attempt at least one three a night, Sensabaugh is second with 43.3% marksmanship from distance. How about from the free-throw line? Also stellar at 81%, as only Tanner Holden shoots a better percentage among Ohio State players who attempt at least one per game.
Sensabaugh’s game isn’t perfect. Chris Holtmann has harped on his need to improve defensively throughout the season, and some of those shortcomings were on display late in Ohio State’s most recent outing against Maryland.
But that hasn’t stopped Sensabaugh from garnering one-and-done buzz just 15 games into his college career, and it’s likely to grow louder as the season progresses.
For good reason.
