Ohio State Buckeyes shutting down Zed Key for remainder of season due to shoulder injury
Zed Key has played his final game of the 2022-23 season.
The third-year center and Ohio State captain will sit out the rest of the year as he continues to recover from a left shoulder sprain he aggravated in a Jan. 5 loss to Purdue. In 25 games including 23 starts, Key has averaged 10.8 points and a team-high 7.5 rebounds while shooting 54.7% from the floor.
Coach Chris Holtmann said Wednesday that Key will undergo surgery soon.
"We wanted him to get back to campus so the medical team could fully evaluate him," Holtmann said. "I think they didn’t feel comfortable clearing him considering some of his continued issues with his shoulder. We had always intended for him to have surgery. This just moved up the surgery."
Key had battled the injury during the opening weeks of the season but, after taking a hard shot to the shoulder in the opening minutes of the Purdue game, had to leave and was physically unable to return. He missed the team’s next game, a loss at Maryland, and returned as a reserve in a Jan. 12 home loss to Minnesota while wearing a restrictive, heavy black brace.
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Although Key had dealt with some pain in the non-conference portion of the schedule, Holtmann said the Purdue tipoff was the first time the shoulder came out of its socket.
"The biggest thing they were testing was the strength, the overall strength, and as that continued to weaken and not get better, they felt like he was just going to be more susceptible to further injury and didn’t feel comfortable clearing him," Holtmann said. "I know Zed and his family felt some relief in the sense that they can move forward and get the surgery done a little earlier and hopefully have a little bit of a longer offseason."
The brace helped protect Key from further injury, but it couldn’t stop the pain when he fully extended his arm or took hard contact. Earlier this month, Key said the pain was at a six on a scale of 1 to 10 and that, while it wasn't debilitating, "It lets you know it's there."
In a Feb. 16 loss at Iowa, Key had to leave after Hawkeyes’ big man Filip Rebraca caught the ball on the right block, banged into Key and then easily scored as Key went to the ground clutching the shoulder.
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“If it was a close game would he have played? I’m not sure,” Holtmann told The Dispatch after the 92-75 loss. “Probably not. I think they just wanted him to sit out, see if he can get some more strength and mobility back in his shoulder.”
But when the Buckeyes went to Purdue three days later, Key was listed as unavailable, and he watched the game from the bench in a white Ohio State t-shirt.
“Obviously, we’re hopeful, but we don’t know anything right now definitively,” Holtmann said afterward. “We should know more in the next couple days.”
Without him, Felix Okpara and Gene Brown III are likely to fit into the center mix with converted walk-on Owen Spencer also a possibility.
The Buckeyes will host Penn State on Thursday night.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Shoulder injury shuts down season for Ohio State's Zed Key
