Ohio State basketball: Justice Sueing not close to returning

The Ohio State basketball team has played all season long without a full squad. They haven’t played a single game this year where they have had all of their players available. That won’t be changing anytime soon either according to Chris Holtmann.

Holtmann said today on his radio show that the Buckeyes won’t be getting Justice Sueing back anytime soon. In fact, he said he is “not close” to returning. Sueing has only played in 2 games this season before suffering an abdominal. He has yet to return from that injury.

Even when Sueing does come back Holtmann mentioned that he’s not expecting Sueing to be the same type of player. It almost sounds like Holtmann is chalking this up as a lost year for him. He did mention that Sueing would be welcomed back for a sixth year if that’s what he wants.

That’s not good news for an Ohio State basketball team that doesn’t have a reliable wing right now. Justin Ahrens is stuck in a shooting slump. Eugene Brown doesn’t get significant minutes. They really don’t have a small forward that they can rely on right now.

It looks like this team is going to have to rally around the players that it does have at its disposal on a night-to-night basis. The Buckeyes need to find other ways to compensate for not having a wing that they can rely on. That means more work for the guards and E.J. Liddell.

Holtmann has his work cut out for him in that regard. He has to figure out a lineup that gives this team the best chance to beat really good teams in the Big Ten. They have two tough games coming up this week against Minnesota and Purdue. It’s going to take all they have to beat those teams.

I guess we’ll find out how much Sueing can give once he does eventually come back from this injury.