The Ohio State Buckeyes will be without forward Zed Key for the remainder of the season, as he is getting left shoulder surgery to repair his labrum Thursday.
The injury was first sustained against the Duke Blue Devils on Nov. 30, 2022, then reinjured against the Purdue Boilermakers on Jan. 5, having to wear a shoulder brace thereafter to keep it stabilized. Key said on Feb. 14 that the injury affected his game "a little bit," but Monday he revealed it actually hindered his play "a lot."
"I'm down there in the post, so I use my shoulder a lot to get the defender off my body. There's a lot of jumping, grabbing rebounds, and people going in there hitting your arms, and I use my left hand a lot for the jump hook," Key said. "Even with the brace on, it definitely affected a lot because I knew like my shoulder wasn't 100 percent and like the shots that were falling in the beginning of the year that I knew I can make, it just wasn't falling."
Key said against the Iowa Hawkeyes Feb. 16, he tried to defend the baseline and "just put my arm out" and his shoulder "did what it did." The Buckeyes' big man said he realized that with no improvement in its health that he should get surgery sooner rather than later.
He said it was a tough decision to make.
"I had been battling through it and thought it was nothing, I can keep pushing through it," Key said. "Where it was at Iowa game, there was no reason to keep going. It was definitely a tough decision. I had to think about it for a couple of days. I didn't make a decision right away. But, you know, I did some long, hard thinking, decided to shut down."
Key said the doctors told him it would take four to six months to recover, but he said he's not going to try to push the recovery process to meet a certain deadline. He said he's going to play again when his shoulder "feels fully healthy and ready to go."
In his rehab process, Key said he'll start with "little motion" to keep his shoulder moving and as time goes on he'll be able to shoot again.
His new role has been motivating the team and bringing "energy" on the bench to make sure the Buckeyes are "firing on all cylinders."
Key said ahead of next year he wants to keep "expanding" his game, including shooting more 3s.
"Faster footwork, better conditioning, the same things I said last year," Key said. "Just keep improving on it and just keep growing my game, versatile. Just keep expanding it to the perimeter."
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