Last season, then Ohio State women’s basketball freshman point guard Jaloni Cambridge went through her first year bumps. At the beginning of the season, Cambridge learned about the size and physicality difference as she went to the paint, and near the end of the campaign was a crash course on juggling team dynamics with a clear struggle for offensive control between herself and former Buckeye forward Cotie McMahon. That resulted in a quieter end of the season for Cambridge as Ohio State fell at home
in the Second Round.
Cambridge averaged 11.8 points per game in the 2024 postseason. Then add below-career averages in rebounds and assists, and it was clear that something was amiss in the program. Year two is a completely different story — it is not even the same book.
With the keys to the offense securely in Cambridge’s hands, Ohio State enters the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 seed. Behind that is a core group of player leaders like the point guard and fellow guards Kennedy Cambridge and Chance Gray. What is different about this year’s edition of the Buckeyes is that through this trio, the team’s fizzle got replaced with the fight to compete, even when things get rough.
Jaloni Cambridge’s play leads the way. The sophomore’s list of individual accolades includes a second season on a Big Ten All-Conference team, multiple second and third-team All-American placements from outlets like The Athletic, USA Today, and the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA). Even so, Jaloni Cambridge is still not a household name across college basketball.
There are reasons that this happened that are beyond Jaloni Cambridge’s control, like media rights deals with competing conferences, which limit national exposure from ESPN, but this year, Jaloni Cambridge is poised to break through.
A true contender for Big Ten Player of the Year, Jaloni Cambridge led the Big Ten with 26.4 points per game and also added 4.9 assists per game, good enough for seventh in the power conference. In the 24-25 season, Cambridge had six games where she did not reach double-digit scoring and a trip to Nebraska that ended with no points at all.
This year, there are none of those performances as the sophomore surpassed Ohio State legend and current assistant coach Katie Smith for the sixth-most points scored in a season, which still has room to grow. Jaloni Cambridge has also done things that have not been done in the program since WNBA star Kelsey Mitchell donned scarlet and gray, like a 41-point game that Cambridge picked up against the Illinois Fighting Illini at the start of January.
Now the only thing left for the guard from Tennessee to do is bring her “pass first” offensive play that still ends up with blistering runs to the basket and nearly 30 points per game average to March Madness, and the signs are there that Cambridge will.
While Cambridge’s scoring dipped slightly over the three games of the Big Ten Tournament at 16 points per game, the guard had 16 assists in three games, and if not for a colder shooting performance against the UCLA Bruins, she could have led Ohio State to the tournament title game. Instead, it was a 72-62 defeat to the eventual runaway conference regular season and tournament champions.
After her 12 points on a season low 28.6% shooting, Cambridge was uninterested in talking about it in the post-game locker room. Short, few-line sentences came out of the sophomore’s mouth as her eyes seemingly said she wanted to be anywhere but there in that moment. Cambridge was frustrated, and understandably so.
College athletes at the highest level have a way of forgetting past games to focus on what is ahead, but it is still fuel for added motivation. Cambridge does not need much in the motivation department, and with her “100 miles an hour” speed, according to assistant coach Smith, First and Second Round games against the Howard Bison and either Fairfield or Notre Dame will be where Cambridge can make up for it. The sophomore guard is a dangerous player on both sides of the ball who has not had a chance to play competitively in two weeks.
Cambridge’s stat line of 22.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists on the season makes her one of the best in the nation, but she is not alone in playing an all-around game at point guard. If higher seeds hold true in the First Round, the newly crowned Second Team All-American Cambridge, has a one-on-one matchup against three-time All-American point guard Hannah Hidalgo from the Fighting Irish. It is a battle between two similar guards who play with speed, get others involved, and frustrate opposing programs on both sides of the ball.
That matchup is worth the price of admission in Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center and then some. Aired on the ESPN family of networks, a game of that magnitude is primetime caliber and the biggest stage for Cambridge in her young NCAA career.
Like that 41-point Big Ten performance, or an 18-point, eight-assist, upset win over guard Olivia Miles and TCU, or countless other examples of Cambridge’s ability to step up in big moments, an average game for Jaloni Cambridge against Notre Dame would garner attention. However, this is not the time of year for “average.” If anyone in the Big Ten can elevate their game for the moment, it is Jaloni Cambridge.
