Ohio State Forward Sean Stewart Enters Transfer Portal

Ohio State endured a surprise roster subtraction late Tuesday night when rising junior forward Sean Stewart entered the transfer portal just hours before the transfer window closed.

Stewart leaves Ohio State after playing just one disappointing season in Columbus. Like his fellow five-star and McDonald’s All-American forward Aaron Bradshaw, Stewart joined the team last offseason with high expectations after a rather uneventful freshman season at Duke but never lived up to the hype.

He started each of the 30 games he appeared in but averaged just 5.7 points and 5.8 rebounds in those contests while shooting 54.2 percent from the field (71 of 131) and 50.0 percent from the free-throw line (27 of 54). Stewart’s main Achilles’ heel in his lone season at Ohio State was his inability to stay out of foul trouble. He committed a team-high 103 penalties on the year – 17 more than the next closest Buckeye – and fouled out a team-leading seven times.

Stewart’s ineffectiveness inside was likely made more apparent by the significant time missed by Bradshaw, which caused him to slide over to the center position at 6-8 during the entirety of Big Ten play.

Even with these year-long struggles, Stewart still indicated after Ohio State’s season ending loss to Iowa in the Big Ten tournament that he was happy in his role with the Buckeyes and thought he had found a home in Columbus. The Columbus Dispatch also said that a source close to Stewart told them on multiple occasions during the offseason that he would return to the Buckeyes, only for him to change his mind in the final days of the portal window.

“I do,” Stewart said when asked on March 12 if he thought he had found a home at Ohio State. “(The coaching staff) believed in me. They all had my back. My teammates had my back. Everybody in the program has my back, and I have their backs.”

Over one month after those comments, though, Stewart has officially played his last game in scarlet and gray and will look for his third team in as many seasons.

Stewart’s departure opens up one additional roster spot for the Buckeyes than they had anticipated, which they will almost certainly use to on a frontcourt player.

Ohio State had not found a replacement for Stewart since BSB went to press, but it was linked to a few names, including former Florida Atlantic forward Baba Miller (6-11, 215, 11.3 points, 7.0 rebounds per game last season), former Texas Tech forward Federiko Federiko (6-11, 215, 5.1, 4.5) and former Brown forward Nana Owusu-Anane (6-8, 220, 10.8, 7.1).