Right as No. 14 Ohio State women’s basketball and the No. 10 TCU Horned Frogs stepped onto the court to play at The Coretta Scott King Classic, the Associated Press released its weekly poll to make it No. 12
against No. 9. Regardless of the ranking, the Buckeyes still pulled off a light upset against two-time All-American guard Olivia Miles and the Big 12 side.
Ohio State’s victory showed that recent wins over then No. 8 Maryland and a nearly ranked Illinois Fighting Illini were not flukes. Against TCU, point guard Jaloni Cambridge led even if her name did not end up at the top of the box score’s points, guard Chance Gray is no longer quietly impacting game and center Elsa Lemmilä showed more of her growing game.
Jaloni Cambridge’s impact
It is easy to look at the previous three games of Cambridge scoring and think that something was off on Monday. Against Illinois, Maryland and Penn State, Cambridge averaged 34 points per game with a 57.8% shooting percentage.
Throw a 41-point performance in there and it looked like Cambridge was on a new, unseen, level of control in her game.
So, when Cambridge scored 18 points on 31.8% shooting, it means the sophomore finally came back to Earth? Not exactly.
“Jaloni [Cambridge] is so special, and all their actions go through her, everything’s for her,” TCU head coach Mark Campbell told reporters. “They do a tremendous job putting her in the right spots, and she gets to make plays.”
Cambridge showed that playmaking ability throughout her 40 minutes on the court and matched her season high with eight assists, a mark the guard also hit against the Terrapins. Of those eight assists, four came on three-point shots from her teammates and that included Gray’s final shot from beyond the arc that secured the victory.
Cambridge faked a move to the basket, ran to the perimeter, handed the ball off to Gray right before she created what could have been an inadvertent screen to give the senior shooting guard an extra second to shoot and score.
“We called a play that really Jaloni [Cambridge] was the first option,” McGuff said. “She didn’t get a good shot, and she found Chance [Gray] because she didn’t get a good shot, and it shows you kind of who she is in that she’s not going to take a bad shot just because the ball is in her hands. She found Chance, who’s been red hot all day. So tells you a lot about Jaloni.”
What made this eight-assist performance better than that game against Maryland was the point guard’s assist to turnover ratio. In College Park, Maryland, Cambridge had four turnovers. Against TCU, the guard had none.
“No matter how bad I’m shooting, I’m never going to put my head down,” Cambridge said. “I still had eight assists, which is really good for me, something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, just getting my assist up. And that’s just shows how much trust and faith I have in my teammates.”
A phrase thrown around a lot with Cambridge is “pass-first.” It showed up after the string of big scoring days that seemingly came out of nowhere, despite the guard’s team-leading 19.4 points per game before Ohio State’s trip to Illinois on Jan. 7, 2026.
Cambridge did not show game altering scoring against TCU, but continued the trajectory of a growing leader.
Gray’s performance not new
The Buckeyes played Monday at a neutral site game against a favored Horned Frogs side, with Miles competed in her home state, an added bonus. The atmosphere and experience of TCU made Ohio State the classic underdog, and after the Scarlet and Gray went down 10 points at the end of the first quarter, it looked like a day where the Buckeyes might succumb.
Gray squashed that fairly quickly in the second quarter with two consecutive threes to start the quarter, and ended with an outstanding 6-for-8 shooting from beyond the arc. Pair that alongside the 18 Cambridge points and it looked like Gray stepped up when Ohio State needed it.
“Jaloni [Cambridge] has been red hot lately and didn’t shoot as efficiently today as she normally does, but Chance [Gray] really stepped up and had an incredible game,” McGuff said. “We had a dreadful first quarter as a team, but when we got going in the second quarter, much of that had to do with Chance, and she kind of kept us in the game there in the first half.”
That performance, while impressive, from the senior shooting guard was not new.
Since Ohio State went to Illinois and Cambridge began her standout run of offensive output, Gray increased her productivity too. In the last four games, including the Monday victory over the Horned Frogs, Gray averaged 18.5 points per game with 53.6% shooting from three-point range. Then add 3.5 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game on top of the senior’s scoring.
Those are the best productivity numbers in the guard’s four-year career.
Cambridge and Gray are both leaders on the team and now their games complement each other more than it ever has in the last one and a half years they played together. That dual performances of the Ohio State backcourt is the product of how the team sees each other off the court turning into what people see on the court.
“Yeah, our team has really good chemistry, and we all believe in each other and their roles,” Gray said. “We had everybody step up, step up in every way they did. Lonnie [Cambridge] assisting, Ava [Watson] coming in and defending Olivia [Miles] as best as she could. So I think that a testament to how close we are as a team, and everybody just believing in each other.”
Elsa Lemmilä adjustments
Monday’s matchup featured a one-on-one game within the game between sophomore European bigs Elsa Lemmilä from Ohio State and TCU’s Clara Silva. The two centers had similar roads to their current place as regular starters for their respective teams.
In the first quarter, it looked like Silva had the upper hand. Lemmilä missed her first shot and had a turnover, while Silva had two points an a rebound. Not exactly a sprint for either center at the start but Silva had the upper hand off the stat sheet.
From the second quarter through the final buzzer, the game belonged to Lemmilä inside the paint. The Finnish big had six blocks in the victory and a steal of TCU’s final heave attempt to get the ball into the basket for a three-point shot. In the second quarter, Lemmilä‘s aggressive play gave Ohio State a distinct advantage because the Buckeye’s ability to catch and go to the rim forced three fouls from Silva and a trip the bench.
Those fouls meant five points from the free throw line in the second quarter, at a time when Ohio State needed every point it could get. It looked like it gave Lemmilä a boost of confidence because rebounds started going her way. Ohio State then started rebounding after TCU had a 19-6 advantage in the rebounding margin in the first quarter. They had nine apiece with in the second quarter.
Lemmilä turned that confidence into control in the second half. The interior work continued and Lemmilä added three more blocks and shot 5-for-7 from the floor after a tough 1-for-5 in the first half.
Against TCU, and increasingly more since Lemmilä rejoined the starting lineup on Dec. 28 against UCLA, the center also ran. While some centers lumber down the court, or hang back a little bit so they can get on offense quickly, Lemmilä keeps up with the Buckeyes and it paid off.
Lemmilä gave Ohio State the lead at the start of the fourth quarter with two fast break baskets.
On the first layup, Lemmilä did not benefit from running alongside a smaller guard. Lemmilä looked like a guard when she stripped the ball from forward Marta Suárez, grabbed it and ran the court by herself to tie the game.
“Now she’s [Lemmilä] done this in a couple games in a row,” McGuff said. “She ran the floor and outran everybody, and with the pace that Jaloni [Cambridge] was going with and pushing she was able to get a couple easy baskets.”
Also, Lemmilä looked comfortable dribbling and waiting for guards to get open as they run the perimeter. Earlier this season, when the center tried to go to the basket, the continued recovery from two surgeries was clear. Lemmilä looked like she was in pain or trying to find her form. Monday showed that those moments are a distant memory
Bonus lesson: that last free throw
With a fraction of a second remaining, Ohio State had a one-point lead and two free throws pending for Cambridge. The guard hit the first to make it a two-point lead and then missed the rim completely and tried to grab her own shot. That is not allowed in basketball and it gave the Horned Frogs a chance to win the game.
In the end it did not hurt the Buckeyes, but what happened exactly?
“That was my fault, I should have just told her to make it,” McGuff told reporters.
The idea makes sense. Maybe it was the fear of Olivia Miles and her ability to create offense with ease. If someone could help a team score with .3 seconds remaining, Miles is on the shortlist.
“I’ve never been in that situation before,” Cambridge said. “Hopefully that’s the last time that ever happens to me.”
Sometimes it is best to not overthink it.
