Ohio State basketball: Who loses minutes when Justice Sueing returns?

The Ohio State basketball team is playing some excellent basketball right now. Everything they are doing is working. They have won some big games over the last couple of weeks and most recently beat Wisconsin this past weekend by a whopping 18 points.

So far, the rotation seems pretty figured out. Chris Holtmann is giving a lot of players minutes but is keeping his best players on the floor longer. They have won all of these games without starting forward Justice Sueing as well. What happens to the rotation when he comes back?

First off, my guess is he comes off the bench to start things off. He’ll need to get his conditioning back and that could take some time. Secondly, no matter if he’s in the starting lineup or coming off the bench, someone else loses minutes. Who will be that person?

It looks to me that the most likely candidate is Eugene Brown III. Brown just came back from his own injury a couple of games ago. He doesn’t play that many minutes now and doesn’t add a whole lot to the team. He plays decent defense but doesn’t get the ball enough on offense to do anything but shoot open threes.

Brown hasn’t hit the threes with enough consistency to warrant him getting minutes over a player of Sueing’s caliber. Brown will likely lose the minutes he’s been getting unless he plays with his hair on fire against Kentucky this weekend. Sueing is getting closer and closer to returning.

Malaki Branham will likely return to his bench role once Sueing is back as well. Branham has shown flashes of brilliance but is still extremely raw. Sueing is better suited starting right now than the young Branham is.

We’ll see how Holtmann ultimately decides to handle the rotation when everyone on this Ohio State basketball team is healthy. He has a few weeks to figure things out before that happens.