This season of Ohio State women’s basketball is already historic because of the play of point guard Jaloni Cambridge.
The sophomore guard’s scoring put her name alongside former Buckeyes Jacy Sheldon and
Kelsey Mitchell in the record books. From scoring a career high 41 points to scoring at least 30 points in four games, Jaloni Cambridge draws attention from basketball fans, regardless of the rooting interest.
Sunday afternoon in Eugene, Oregon, head coach Kelly Graves paid special attention leading up to the matchup and it showed. Oregon looked up to the task of keeping the Ohio State point guard off the scoring column for most of the game.
Now, slower scoring starts are not new for Jaloni Cambridge. The guard showed fans her seemingly endless motor by taking advantage of teams in the second half, after Ohio State pushed every opposing strength and conditioning coach to the point of frustration watching their players slow down.
Oregon did better than most and held the guard to nine points in the first three quarters on 3-for-6 shooting. In comparison, Jaloni Cambridge had 15 shots through three quarters against the Washington Huskies just three days prior.
The Ducks contained Ohio State’s top offensive weapon by clogging lanes, with the discipline to not leave them open. When Jaloni Cambridge did go to the basket, there was usually a player making the road more difficult to trek.
“They obviously committed some resources and scouting to trying to slow Jaloni [Cambridge] down and try to take away some of her scoring,” head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters.
That normally means that Ohio State has a late uphill climb ahead of itself if Jaloni Cambridge is neutralized, but not Sunday. Instead, the Buckeyes had a nice 12-point lead and the Scarlet and Gray outscored the home side in each of the first three quarters.
Ohio State players not named Jaloni Cambridge accounted for 47 points in the first 30 minutes of Sunday’s win, and 13 of those came off an assist from Jaloni Cambridge, who had six through three quarters.
Over the recent uptick in form that has the Buckeyes on a four-game winning streak and sitting second in the Big Ten standings, Jaloni Cambridge has not kept it a secret that she is about team basketball. After she is inevitably asked about her high scoring figures, there is a small range of answers that go from Jaloni Cambridge just doing what the defense allowed her to do or doing whatever she can to help the team win.
Until Sunday though, the team did not regularly show it because Jaloni Cambridge always had that extra gear to punish opponents. Before the end of Ohio State’s West Coast trip, only one Big Ten game ended with someone other than Jaloni Cambridge leading the scoring for the Buckeyes.
Also, in the last eight conference games, Jaloni Cambridge never scored less than 20 points.
Does that mean that Jaloni Cambridge won all of those games by herself? Hardly. There was usually another player to step up and play the supplemental scorer role. On Sunday, Jaloni Cambridge did not only play the supplemental scorer role but she was the third highest scorer on her team behind 23 points for center Elsa Lemmilä and 20 from guard Kennedy Cambridge.
“She [Jaloni Cambridge] reacted great and gave the ball up to other great players on the team, and she had eight assists, and Elsa [Lemmilä] and Kennedy [Cambridge] were two of the beneficiaries of that, where they were able to knock down shots. And so I think we’re at our best when we kind of have some balance in the scoring.”
Jaloni Cambridge ended the day with eight assists, tied for a single game high this season in wins over the Maryland Terrapins and the Big 12’s TCU Horned Frogs.
Assists can be misleading because it always requires the person at the other end to make a shot, and there are plenty of times in a game where a player makes a great pass that does not end with points or another crooked number on the assists stat column. With Jaloni Cambridge, the sophomore made passes under pressure, between defenders and on the fast break. They are not always the easiest passes.
Lemmilä was the primary benefactors of those assists with four. The inside/outside duo of Lemmilä and Jaloni Cambridge hurt the Ducks with screens, give and gos and all-around consistent scoring from the 6-foot-6 Finnish big who went 10-for-12 from the floor.
Older sister Kennedy Cambridge helped give Jaloni Cambridge one of those eight assists too, but the starting point guard had an assist with everyone on her team. There is no favoritism or exclusion, only Jaloni Cambridge reading the play and finding the best option.
All of this makes it sound like Jaloni Cambridge had a bad day on offense, outside of finding open teammates, but that is not true. The guard still ended the day with 19 points, more than anyone on the Oregon roster, along with six rebounds.
Ask any coach in the NCAA if they want someone with a stat line of 19 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds on their team, they will likely respond “for how much?”
In the process, Jaloni Cambridge also set a a personal scoring mark before the end of her second season with the Buckeyes.
A defensive strategy like Oregon’s on Sunday was inevitable. The game plan of forcing the other players to beat you instead of the superstar. Ohio State showed that it does not always work, and often times the superstar still breaks through and causes pain for the opposition.
