College basketball in March happens in a pressure cooker.
Every shot feels like you’re watching it in slo-mo. The clock takes on almost a cartoonish personality, the buzzers an almost cartoonish sound effect. Each mistake feels heavier, weighed down by the knowledge that it could be the one that ends a season.
In a world where the intangibles matter as much as, if not more than, the fundamentals, the teams that dance well are the ones that dance through fire and come out the other side.
This is good
news for Buckeye fans. Sure, the women’s basketball team has impressive numbers. A lot has gone right for the No. 3-seed Buckeyes this year. The women currently hold a 26-7 record and the No. 12 overall ranking in the country, for example. They’ve done enough to earn a host spot.
Individual players like Jaloni Cambridge, who enters the tournament with an average of 22.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game, all while shooting 49 percent from the field, have really come into their own as leaders this year.
All this is to say, there is a lot to celebrate about the season so far.
But as we near the start of the March Madness tournament, it’s not the flashy plays or big wins I’m still thinking about. Instead, I’m still thinking about the way this team has responded when things didn’t go according to plan.
Only once this season have the Buckeyes lost back-to-back games, falling on the road to No. 23 Minnesota just three days after losing a 76-75 heartbreaker to No. 20 Maryland.
After every other loss, their resilience shone through. Even in the one instance of back-to-back losses, two losses didn’t become three because they didn’t let it. They haven’t lingered in defeat, instead regrouping in time for the next outing.
A powerful example that comes to mind is their loss to No. 8 Michigan, a devastating two-point overtime home loss to their rivals, of all teams, which ended when Chance Gray nailed a 30-footer, but not in time to beat the buzzer. The details of that loss could have derailed a lesser team, but for these Buckeyes, it was motivation.
Their next outing was a record-breaking one: Cambridge hit 33 points, Gray added 21 of her own, and the Buckeyes closed out the regular season by hitting 18 three-pointers, a program record, in an 87-68 win on the road at No. 15 Michigan State.
These numbers were against a ranked team, one that stacks up extremely well against the Buckeyes on paper, and yet they got completely shut down on their own court by an Ohio State team that tapped into their resilience and came back stronger.
If resilience is an intangible thing that can make or break you in the regular season, it’s all the more important on the bigger tournament stage. And to be clear, no team has made it to this point in a long season without facing some element of adversity. Losses, injuries, and penalties all force a team to hit the reset button.
But for Ohio State in particular, the ability to overcome the obstacles they’ve faced in the regular season could prove valuable for them in the tournament. That’s the thing about the pressure cooker of March—it helps if you’ve been pressure tested first.
Now, Ohio State gets ready to enter the tournament off another loss, this time a 72-62 loss to No. 2-in-the-nation UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
The Bruins, an exceptional team this season, found a way to rattle the Buckeyes, forcing turnovers on an already off-day for Cambridge (sometimes the shots just won’t fall, and in a game where she rarely had an open lane, that was certainly true for the sophomore in the loss).
The Buckeyes have had more than a week to regroup in preparation for the first round of the tournament, and they’ll have the home court advantage in their first regional matchup this Saturday.
They’ve experienced both sides of tough matchups, winning six games against ranked teams this season and losing seven (though only to six teams—they lost twice to UCLA). They’ve found a sense of urgency in the face of setbacks, something that’s key during the rapid pace of tournament play. And they’ve performed well on their home court all season long, boasting a 14-3 home record.
Now, the Buckeyes play their first tournament game this Saturday at 11:30 a.m. against Howard at the Schottenstein Center. If Ohio State advances, they will face the winner of No. 6 Notre Dame and No. 11 Fairfield on March 23 (time TBD).
In many ways, a win over Howard is an announcement by a team coming off a tough loss: Just because the Big Ten Tournament didn’t end the way they wanted it to doesn’t mean it’s time to write them off. They know exactly what they need to do differently in the tournament coming off the loss earlier this month because the conference tournament loss gave them a blueprint for future wins.
So as they get ready to dance, don’t be surprised if they’re able to use that blueprint to keep dancing for quite a while.
