Ohio State basketball: Losing Justin Ahrens not a big blow

The Ohio State basketball team recently added a player from the transfer portal. They added guard Tanner Holden from Wright State, who might be Chris Holtmann’s best grab from the portal to date. Now, he loses a player to the portal this offseason.

Justin Ahrens, the senior, announced that he would be entering the transfer portal to use his COVID year somewhere else. This is not a big loss for the Buckeyes. Ahrens began the season as a starter but lost those privileges soon after the Big Ten Conference season began.

He lost those privileges because his shooting fell off a cliff this season. After shooting over 40% from three over the past two seasons, he fell to a much worse 35% from deep. Even worse, his shooting percentage overall dropped from 43% in 2021 to 34.6% this past year.

The loss of shooting is why Ahrens’ minutes dropped immensely later in the season. He was only played 4 minutes in the loss to Villanova in the NCAA Tournament and 12 minutes in the first-round win vs. Loyola Chicago. He was held scoreless in four of his final five games for the Ohio State basketball team.

Ahrens will go somewhere else to finish his college career. I wish him nothing but the best, but this is addition by subtraction for the Buckeyes next year. He just wasn’t very good at anything if his shot wasn’t falling. He couldn’t play defense, rebound, or make plays for others.

This just opens up minutes for more of the young guys to play from this recruiting class, specifically Brice Sensabaugh. He will likely get the backup minutes behind Justice Sueing next season instead of sitting behind a super-senior in Ahrens.

Hopefully, Ahrens can end his career on a positive note at a place where he can add some real value.