For all but 16 Division I women’s basketball programs, it is the offseason. March Madness goes into its second weekend on Friday, pushing forward on the way to crowning a national champion, but for hundreds of teams, it is the start of the roster limbo. The transfer portal giveth and the transfer portal taketh away. What do we know about how it impacts Ohio State women’s basketball next season? Here is what we know.
As of publishing, no Buckeyes have expressed their interest in joining the portal,
and there are still players who have not 100% said they are going to return. That is the standard procedure in 2026, although guard Kennedy Cambridge confirmed to a media scrum on Monday that she is returning.
That bodes well for Ohio State, but what about the rest of the roster? Listen to the starters on the roster, and there are signs of a mass return for the Scarlet and Gray.
“We have a very young team, so there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” center Elsa Lemmilä told reporters. “I think we just need to take what our coach has been saying after each of our games all year and just improve on those points so that we can get to the same position next year with the same team and win.”
Part of the reason that the Buckeyes fell to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the NCAA Tournament’s Second Round is a vast gap in experience. Of the seven players head coach Niele Ivey played in the 83-73 Notre Dame victory, six of them were seniors. Only point guard Hannah Hidalgo was not, and she is still a junior. Ohio State entered the game with two upperclassmen in the starting lineup, and only one had started a majority of their career before this season.
Ohio State made young team mistakes with 25 turnovers, forced passes, and less composure than their opponents from South Bend, Indiana.
Head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters in the locker room that all nine players left on the roster are welcome back, and he would gladly have them. The only players guaranteed not to be in scarlet and gray next season are guards Chance Gray and T’Yana Todd, who both exhausted their NCAA eligibility.
Their absence, especially Gray, who started every game of her NCAA career, which included the last two seasons for the Buckeyes, means Ohio State has a gap to fill. Todd did not break into the lineup consistently, although she did improve defensively as the year went on and provided strong on-ball defense in the latter part of the campaign.
With Gray gone, the Scarlet and Gray lose its second best scorer on the team. Gray followed only point guard Jaloni Cambridge with 14.7 points per game, a career high for the Cincinnati, Ohio native. That graduation means that the Buckeyes also lose their top three-point shooter. Gray averaged six shots per game and hit 2.4, for a team high 40.5% for a Buckeye guard.
Should the rest of the starting lineup return, Gray’s absence means a chance for guard Ava Watson to move into a No. 2 guard role or bring up freshman Bryn Martin, who was the primary guard off the bench for McGuff for offensive reasons. There is also Dasha Biriuk, who did not play 22 minutes in Big Ten play. A third option is incoming 2026 freshman guard Atlee Vanesko.
As things stand, the Buckeyes head into the 26-27 season with 10 players, which leaves room for any late freshman flips or transfers. Realistically, it means one, maybe two, additional players in the revenue-sharing era of college basketball. The days of stacking a 15-player roster for Ohio State, with the intent to redshirt, are not as viable as they once were, due to player payments.
This offseason, teams have less time to work in the portal, too. In November, the NCAA announced amended dates for a player’s entrance into the portal. In previous seasons, players eliminated from the NCAA Tournament entered while competitive games still happened. This year, the portal is only open for two weeks. For women’s basketball, that is from April 6 through April 20, unless a coach leaves outside of the window.
So, any sort of announcement at this point is a shared intent to join, not to officially enter the portal. That cannot come until April 6.
How will it impact the Buckeyes this season? Will Ohio State make a rare move of keeping everyone from the previous season? Will players further down the roster move to get minutes? Will a starter surprise fans and move on to a new challenge?
Those answers will come soon enough. Until then, there is still basketball to enjoy at the college level, even if Ohio State is not part of it.
