In 18 days, No. 21 Ohio State women’s basketball welcomes the No. 4 UCLA Bruins to the Schottenstein Center. That game ushers in the full Big Ten schedule and features the unanimous Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year, center Lauren Betts. Last season, at the semifinal of the Big Ten Tournament, the Bruins ran Ohio State off the court in a 75-46 rout. This season, Ohio State is practically a brand-new team, and UCLA lost key pieces but retooled.
The Buckeyes have four nonconference games from now
until UCLA’s 2,300-mile trip. Which areas do Ohio State need the most improvement, to even have a chance against the tested, experienced Bruins side? Here are three to watch, starting Thursday against Northern Kentucky.
Interior Defense
Against the Northwestern Wildcats on Sunday, the Buckeyes came away with a 79-70 win, but it was anything but easy — especially inside the arc. Ohio State won the points in the paint margin by 12 points, but was decimated in the midrange by forward Grace Sullivan.
Northwestern made eight shots in the first quarter, and seven of those were midrange jumpers. Six of the seven were from Sullivan.
Ohio State’s zone struggled to match up with Sullivan. Even with shot after shot falling for the Wildcat senior, there was no adjustment by the Buckeyes, including head coach Kevin McGuff. Most of those six Sullivan efforts did not come with adequate defensive pressure due to extra passes from Northwestern.
The more teams pass, the more Ohio State has to run. When Northwestern extended plays around the Buckeye zone, oftentimes it ended with an open shooter with a Buckeye speeding to try and close down the shooter. It looks like a hockey power play, except each team still has five players on the court in basketball.
UCLA will have an added wrinkle with the 6’7” Betts. Over the last year, teams showed that the best way to slow Betts down is a late double-team. That will already put a struggling Ohio State half-court defense to the test. It also means that the Buckeyes will need more size on the court or use a defensive-minded guard like Kennedy Cambridge to come in for help.
A big problem for the Scarlet and Gray is that there are no problematic bigs coming up against the four mid-major programs. No teams have a projected starter over 6-foot-3, shorter than the two likely rotating Ohio State bigs in Kylee Kitts (6-foot-4) and Elsa Lemmilä (6-foot-6).
While it is nearly impossible to account for the game of Betts, keeping up with players and limiting open shots in the zone transcends the opponent. UCLA might be faster and feature more skill players, but the upcoming matchups allow the Buckeyes to continue building their muscle memory, how the team reacts to passes, and make sure shooters are accounted for.
Kylee Kitts & Elsa Lemmilä
The bigs themselves are a duo to watch, because over the last three games, the Ohio State interior players showed growth and their high ceilings. After McGuff started both for the first three games of the season, Lemmilä moved to a bench role after the Finnish big missed a Nov. 19 win over Kent State due to a leg injury. Lemmilä underwent two offseason surgeries on her knee and ankle, which limited the amount of offseason. Kitts also went through knocks in her first offseason with the Buckeyes after the forward transferred from the Florida Gators after a redshirt season.
With the two on the court at different times, at least for now, McGuff has a duo that complements each other well. Kitts is an athletic forward who has struggled in game moments early, but those same examples also showed a quick turnaround into composure and production.
Against the UConn Huskies, Kitts missed assignments soon into the game, but recovered to grab 10 rebounds and score nine points against the defending National Champions. On Sunday, against Northwestern, Kitts had a disjointed first-quarter performance that put her on the bench for the entire second quarter.
“She [Kitts] was not up to her abilities at all in the first half,” McGuff told Land-Grant Holy Land. “She’s got to realize that we’re relying on her for quite a bit. And I know it’s sometimes tough as a freshman, but she has shown how good she can be, including this second half.”
In that second half, Kitts scored 18 points and was more aggressive around the basket. It earned six trips to the line, where Kitts had her second perfect free-throw shooting game of the young season with at least six attempts.
Although the redshirt freshman led the team with five turnovers, McGuff took the good with the bad, and Kitts showed more confidence near the basket. That confidence resulted in more shot attempts and better defensive pressure on the Wildcats’ interior.
For Lemmilä, her late performance against the then No. 21 West Virginia Mountaineers at the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship helped the Buckeyes come back from a late seven-point deficit without starting guards Jaloni Cambridge and Kennedy Cambridge, who both fouled out. Lemmilä had a key block and made the shot that put Ohio State ahead in the closing moments. The sophomore also had four fouls at the time, something Lemmilä played with the entire fourth quarter, but it did not limit the center or slow her down. There was no hesitancy in the moments where Ohio State needed the big the most.
Against the Wildcats, Lemmilä stepped in for that second quarter and brought calm to the interior game of the Buckeyes. In the first, third, and fourth quarters, when Lemmilä came in sporadically off the bench, Northwestern out-rebounded the Buckeyes 32-24. In the second quarter, Ohio State won the rebounding margin 13-6, and Lemmilä had four. In those four were three offensive rebounds, which gave the Buckeyes extra possessions to flip Northwestern’s six-point advantage at the start of the second into an eight-point Ohio State lead entering halftime.
Offensively, Lemmilä looked more comfortable in her interior shot over the earlier games of the season. Lemmilä scored six of her seven points on the day in the second quarter, too.
Now that Kitts and Lemmilä are healthier and getting more reps in the young team, these performances have a higher likelihood of repetition. The next four games will give both added confidence against sides where they outmatch opposing interior players. They will need to withdraw from that bank of confidence once Big Ten games pick back up at the end of the month.
T’Yana Todd
So far in the early 2025-26 season, senior transfer guard T’Yana Todd has not entered the conversation much for Ohio State. In the former Boston College guard’s first seven games in scarlet and gray, Todd averaged 7.6 points in 17.1 minutes per game. Todd entered the season off an ACC-leading 45.9% efficiency from three-point range, but slumped down to 31.8% on only 3.1 shots attempted per game.
Defensively, Todd was not shining in the full-court press and had only three steals in the four games prior to the trip to the Bahamas to face the Belmont Bruins and Mountaineers. Compare that to a combined 24 between the Cambridge sisters across the same span of games.
In the Bahamas, defensive play by bench guards Ava Watson and Bryn Martin started a case for a possible change at guard for Ohio State. Todd spent three years in the same system and now, under McGuff, struggles to fit into the new defensive scheme. Both sides of the ball were a struggle.
Against Northwestern, Todd began to show that the reps are working. McGuff played Todd for 27 minutes, compared to only 11 and 19 against West Virginia and Connecticut, respectively. In those minutes, Todd’s name did not fly off the stat sheet compared to a 22-point game from point guard Jaloni Cambridge, but Todd had her best three-point shooting day as a Buckeye. Todd went 3-of-6 from beyond the arc on 13 points. Defensively, the guard had two steals and a block.
Todd started to show why McGuff recruited her in the first place. Should the trend continue, Todd adds another dimension to help Ohio State compete in a difficult Big Ten.
