The talk was there even before Brice Sensabaugh arrived at Ohio State.
After a senior season at Orlando Lake Highland Prep ended with Florida Mr. Basketball honors, the prolific forward was in the final days of preparing for his freshman year when coach Ben Fratrik got a good look at him in the weight room.
“He looks like a freaking NBA player,” Fratrik told The Dispatch in June.
Now midway through Big Ten play, more people are starting to see what Fratrik did seven months ago. The leading scorer on an Ohio State team that has struggled offensively for the last month, Sensabaugh has steadily played his way into the conversation as the next one-and-done Buckeye with each bucket.
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Monday, Yahoo! Sports projected the 6-6, 235-pound Sensabaugh as the No. 19 picks in the 2023 draft. NBCSports recently projected him at No. 20. But when ESPN published its first 2023 mock draft on Oct. 4, Sensabaugh wasn’t mentioned.
That’s what averaging a team-high 17.6 points on 50.8% shooting from the floor through 21 games can do for a player. As the Buckeyes prepare to host Wisconsin on Thursday night and snap a stretch of seven losses in eight games, Sensabaugh said he’s focused on helping his team have a better second half to the season.
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But yes, he’s heard the NBA talk.
“Yeah, I hear it,” he said before Tuesday’s practice at Value City Arena. “I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t. To be honest, I think I try to focus on staying where my feet are and living in the moment and I think I do a pretty good job of that.
“I don’t really pay much attention to it. Whatever I can do in the moment to play hard where I’m playing or make little improvements for Ohio State, obviously things like that build up and your performance gets better it can reflect on the future but right now I’m in the moment. “
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Sensabaugh has been named Big Ten freshman of the week four times this season. He’s the first freshman in Ohio State history to lead the team in scoring in more than nine games and will enter the game against the Badgers having led the Buckeyes in 12 straight games.
Nationally, Sensabaugh is 18th in 3-point field-goal percentage at 47.4% (45 for 95) and making more than half of his total shots while taking the ninth highest percentage of his team’s shots while on the court according to KenPom.com. He’s fifth in the Big Ten in scoring average, seventh in field-goal percentage and made 3-pointers and eighth in free-throw percentage (57 for 71, 80.3%).
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It’s been enough to get the eye of NBA scouts and potentially put him in line to be the second one-and-done player for Ohio State in as many years. Last season, Malaki Branham won Big Ten freshman of the year honors and was taken by San Antonio with the No. 20 picks.
Sensabaugh credited his parents as well as the Ohio State coaches for helping him keep level-headed even as his personal star has continued to rise.
“(The coaches) made it clear to me that they want the best for me and my future, wherever it may be, not only as a player but as a man,” he said. “They emphasized for me to stay in the moment. They’re the coaches of Ohio State and I’m a player at Ohio State so whatever we have to do for Ohio State is going to happen. Obviously we’re in a little dip right now but we’re constantly working, constantly having conversations about how we can get better and keep improving.
“Obviously we’re in a tough spot, but day by day we’re trending in the right direction, especially in practice. We work really hard in practice.”
It’s translating to games for Sensabaugh. At what level those games will be played next season remains to be seen.