Between No. 19 Ohio State women’s basketball and Illinois are 26 players, split 11 for the Buckeyes and 15 for the Illini. There are only six total upperclassmen across the two programs.
For the past three seasons, both the Scarlet and Gray and the Orange and Blue had key seniors leading the teams to success. Each season ended with the two sides in the NCAA Tournament, except for 2023 when the Illini made, and won, the WBIT.
Those days are over and while lacking strong upperclassmen leadership usually
spells issues, both Illinois and Ohio State are teams on the rise in the Big Ten. They are both led by sophomore stars and have matchups that almost make buying a B1G+ streaming subscription worth it.
Here is what the Illini brings to the court, the one-on-one battles to watch and how head coach Kevin McGuff wants the Buckeyes to stop making things so complicated.
The Fighting Illini
Illinois lost 75% of their scoring from the 2024-25 season but that is not bothering the young team. Sophomore forward Berry Wallace, from the Columbus, Ohio-area suburb of Pickerington, leads a team that starts two freshmen and already have a marquee victory under their belts.
While minor slip-ups kept them out of the weekly Associated Press top-25 rankings, they have the 26th most selections from the panel of weekly voters and are on the cusp of no longer being a surprise in the Big Ten.
Wallace is a 6-foot-1 forward who plays any position. The sophomore goes into the paint to hit contested layups, goes to the free throw line 4.5 times per game and regularly takes, and hits, shots from deep. Head coach Shauna Green used the forward sparingly last season with players like forward Kendall Bostic and guard Genesis Bryant leading things for the Illini, but this season Green has a lot of trust in Wallace.
Alongside the Ohioan is junior Gretchen Dolan, the most experienced Illinois member with three years in Champaign under Coach Green. Dolan’s guard play on offense compares to Ohio State point guard Jaloni Cambridge. Not in the speed or creativity of delivery, but in Dolan’s ability to stop a run, pull up and hit a midrange jumper when the defense is expecting her to go to the rim.
Then there are the two freshmen — guard Destiny Jackson and forward Cearah Parchment. Neither of the two has the regular mistakes that normally plague freshman. Parchment’s 6-foot-3 frame and energy on both sides of the court has her averaging nearly a double-double at 11.1 points and 7.7 rebounds.
For Jackson, the guard from Chicago has five assists per game and the best defensive rating for any guard on the roster at 83, the statistic that measures a player’s effectiveness in terms of points scored by an opponent over 100 possessions.
Like the Buckeyes, who surprised teams with a mere seven-point defeat to the No. 4 UCLA Bruins on Dec. 28, 2025, Illinois is a team that does not deserve the “rebuilding” tag normally given to a team with so much turnover.
The Fighting Illini have a home win over the No. 7 Maryland Terrapins and a narrow road defeat to the No. 24 Michigan State Spartans. That loss also shows a positive for Illinois in Wednesday’s matchup against the Buckeyes. Specifically in how well the Illini takes care of the ball.
Michigan State averages 12.6 steals per game, which is currently the third highest in the country. On their home court, the Spartans only forced seven turnovers. Overall, the Fighting Illini only gives away the ball 12 times per game, which is the third best in the Big Ten.
So, despite the young age, with only two upperclassmen in the starting lineup and one off the bench, Green has the Illini playing responsible basketball for a team that is wise beyond its years.
How will the Buckeyes’ defense hold up, in terms of fouls? Ohio State’s two main catalysts on offense and defense, Jaloni Cambridge and Kennedy Cambridge, are seventh and eighth in the Big Ten in personal fouls. The key for the Buckeyes may be its own discipline when the Spartans have the ball, something that Wallace is especially talented at messing up for opposing defenses.
Matchups to Watch
Who is going to be in the one-on-one battles against these players, when the Buckeyes play halfcourt defense? At point guard, Jaloni Cambridge against Jackson will challenge the young Illini guard.
While Jackson’s defense stood out this season for Illinois, in conference play that defensive rating is up to 96 and that is without a game against someone like Jaloni Cambridge who has a strong argument for fastest player in the Big Ten.
In a season and a half as a Buckeye, Jaloni Cambridge showed on numerous occasions her ability to out ball handle an opponent and exploit the smallest of gaps in a team’s defense. It will be the biggest test in the young career of Jackson.
Looking at Wallace and Parchment is an interesting situation for the Buckeyes. Both play forward for the Illini, but hardly stay inside the paint as traditional presences in the paint. Parchment plays more of a No. 5 role for Green’s offense, which is a matchup for center Elsa Lemmilä who is the likely starter after returning to the starting five against UCLA on Dec. 28.
The freshman Illini forward can also shoot from deep, but not as frequently as the sophomore Wallace, so there is a chance for Lemmilä to get pulled away from the basket to allow more space for Wallace and others to try and get to the line and get free throw opportunities.
When the two do go inside, Lemmilä is healthier than she was at the start of the season and it shows. Lemmilä had nine blocks in the first nine games of the season. In the last five, Lemmilä has 18, and that is against conference competition. Of the 18, 14 came in the last three games — all against conference opponents.
A heavy burden on defense lays on the shoulders of Ohio State redshirt freshman forward Kylee Kitts. Should Parchment leave space for Wallace to run, Kitts will be the likely inside player waiting to take on the challenge.
Kitts is second on the team with 2.7 fouls per game, and that is with five to seven less minutes per game than Kennedy Cambridge and Jaloni Cambridge. The Cambridge sisters get McGuff’s trust to continue playing despite foul trouble but not for the young Kitts. Illinois has an opportunity to get Kitts into foul trouble early, which hurts the Buckeyes’ rebounding and gives Wallace and the Illini more space to move.
Kennedy Cambridge, Ohio State’s strongest defender, may be on Wallace when the forward is playing around the arc. That will limit the attention on Kitts and allow her more minutes in the game. Kitts only has a game with more than 20 minutes once in the last three games.
Keep It Simple
Turnovers are always an area to watch for Ohio State, but Wednesday will get additional focus with how well the Illini hold onto possession. That means when turnovers do go the Buckeyes’ way, turning them into points is key and against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, McGuff’s side got sloppy in converting turnovers.
“One thing I don’t think we were good at at all was like converting,” said McGuff after Sunday’s game against Rutgers. “We left a lot of points on the or off the board, because we didn’t convert with some two-on-ones and three-on-twos and four-on-threes. And so that’s, that’s that was an area where we’re usually a little more efficient.”
On multiple occasions, those extra passes were forced and either found a player too late to hit a basket in stride or allowed a Scarlet Knights defender to get back and intercept.
After the game, guard Kennedy Cambridge called the speed in which Ohio State plays as the “Buckeye flow.” Anyone who has watched Ohio State over the last four seasons knows all about it. Turnovers, pace of play and turning steals into easy points. Against Illinois and Sunday against Maryland in College Park, going for the play that turns into points rather than a pass for the highlight reel will go a long way.
“We were over complicating things, sometimes making extra passes,” McGuff said. “Good news is we were trying to play unselfishly, but I think sometimes we were over complicating it.”
