Over the season and a half that Jaloni Cambridge has played for the No. 14 Ohio State women’s basketball team, she has shown why she was the No. 1 point guard prospect in the 2025 recruiting class. Last
season, Cambridge won four Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards, which put her alongside Kelsey Mitchell and Cotie McMahon as the only Ohio State players to earn the weekly honor at least four times. On Monday, the Big Ten and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame awarded Cambridge her first-ever Player of the Week award.
For Kylee Kitts, the redshirt freshman came to NCAA basketball last season a full season early with the Florida Gators, but received a redshirt. Monday, the Big Ten honored the forward with her first Freshman of the Week award.
In two games, Cambridge played 79 of 80 possible minutes and in that time averaged 34.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 7 assists. Both road contests featured moments when the sophomore took the game over, but the second half against the Illinois Fighting Illini on Wednesday was on another level.
After a 12-point, 3-assist first half for Cambridge, she exploded for 29 points after halftime. From the end of the third quarter into the fourth quarter, the guard scored 10 consecutive points for OSU, which held off the Illini long enough to keep the home side at bay. In the second half, Cambridge went 11-for-17 with 6 rebounds and 3 assists on the way to a career high 41 points.
Kitts shot 57.9% from the floor in the two Ohio State victories and 66.7% from beyond the arc. On Sunday, Kitts went 3-of-5 from beyond the arc to help swing a 15-point Maryland lead into a victory for the Buckeyes. Also against Maryland, Kitts matched her season and career high with 18 points, in addition to eight rebounds and three assists.
To add to Cambridge’s week, when the guard hit the 40-point mark, one of her heroes was in the crowd — WNBA star A’ja Wilson. After the game, Cambridge joked that she would be ok to have bad games the rest of her life after Wilson told the sophomore she had a good game after the performance against Illinois.
On Sunday, against the No. 8 Maryland Terrapins, Cambridge did not have another 40-point game, but crucial in Ohio State’s victory. The sophomore had eight of the Buckeyes’ 22 assists on top of 28 points and 9 rebounds, which was the third highest on the Buckeyes behind 6-foot-4 forward Kylee Kitts and 6-foot-6 center Elsa Lemmilä. Additionally, the 5-foot-7 guard’s nine rebounds equaled Maryland’s top rebounder on the day, guard Oluchi Okananwa.
Like the win over the Illini, the first half was slower for the guard, who again had 12 first-half points on 2-of-9 shooting.
“Yeah, I was two for nine, but I was eight for eight from the free throw line,“ Cambridge told reporters. ”Really proud of myself, just getting to the line, not letting up. They were trying to deny me off the ball, but my team has stepped up, and I’m okay with playing off the ball. Don’t have to be the star of every show.“
Maryland had a 12-point lead after the first quarter, but only a two-point lead when the teams entered the halftime locker room. Following the 89-76 road victory over the Terps on Sunday, the media asked Cambridge if she felt any different over the last week than she felt in the previous weeks of her NCAA career.
“No, I’m just happy,” Cambridge said. “I’ve been having great days, great days in the gym, just giving what the other team allows me to do.”
Last season in College Park, fouls neutralized Cambridge’s impact in the 93-90 overtime loss for Ohio State. The guard scored 10 points in 18 minutes, the opposite end of the spectrum from the 40 minutes against the Terps on Sunday.
Cambridge is the first Buckeye since forward Ajae Petty won the award on Dec. 2, 2024, and the first guard to earn the honor since Celeste Taylor picked up the award on Dec. 4, 2023. If Cambridge wins another Player of the Week award as a member of Ohio State, she will join historic company. The last Buckeye to win multiple editions of the honor is guard Kelsey Mitchell, who won the award 12 times. Cambridge only needs 18 more to match the program record 19 Player of the Week honors earned by forward Jantel Lavender.
For Kitts, the Freshman of the Week award is the 15th player in program history to earn the award. Cambridge was the last Buckeye to win it on March 3, 2025. Also, guard Ava Watson won on Feb. 17, 2025. The last time Ohio State swept the weekly Big Ten honors was Dec. 23, 2019 when current WNBA players Dorka Juhász and Jacy Sheldon won Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week awards, respectively.
