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Kyle Young's Ankle Injury Puts Ohio State in Personnel Bind

Junior forward's rebounding and hustle plays will be missed at Nebraska

Ohio State need not venture a guess or propose a theory about how much it will miss junior forward Kyle Young on Thursday at Nebraska.

The final ballots have already been tabulated on that, and the results are not good.

Fresh off a 79-72 upset of No. 7 Maryland that it pulled without Young in the second half, OSU (18-9, 8-8) now faces at least one game and maybe a second Sunday at home against Michigan with the pulse of its lineup forced to the sideline by a high ankle sprain.

Young's recovery time, at best, is about as long as it took him to shake the effect of an appendectomy as 2019 turned into 2020.

You might recall that coincided with consecutive losses to Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana that dropped the Buckeyes so far below .500 in the Big Ten they still have yet to climb above it.

Young missed the losses to both the Badgers and Maryland, and returned prematurely hoping to help OSU squeeze out a win in Bloomington.

Instead, he scored only one point and managed just three rebounds in 23 inconsequential minutes against the Hoosiers -- the type of minutes Young almost never plays.

Purdue coach Matt Painter, a product of Gene Keady's play-hard-or-get-out culture with the Boilermakers, was already convinced of Young's worth before he scored a career-high 16 in a win over the Boilermakers 10 days ago.

"He's one of those guys who's just around the ball," Painter said. "I always challenge our guys when we play someone like him, 'Just play harder than him.' At the end of the day, if you can say you played harder than him, good things are going to happen. But if you don't, you're probably going to lose."

That's Ohio State's fear without Young...losing the momentum it gained with the win over Maryland, losing an above-.500 record in the Big Ten for the first time all season if it falls at Nebraska and losing again Sunday against Michigan (4 p.m., CBS) of Young can't go against the Wolverines.

Injuries to key players are nothing new to the Buckeyes, who so far this season have lost starters Andre Wesson, Duane Washington, Luther Muhammad and Young to injury, as well as the team's most dynamic player, freshman D.J. Carton, to mental health leave.

Junior Musa Jallow, the backcourt version of Young in effort and toughness, is redshirting because of an ankle injury.

"People all over the country have injuries," OSU coach Chris Holtmann said. "At the end of the day it's kind of, 'Did you win or did you lose. Did you perform or not. Did you make the 'NCAA Tournament or not.' For us, that'll be the post-script."

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