Take a look at the final score of No. 14 Ohio State women’s basketball’s win over the Penn State Nittany Lions on Wednesday and it was a comfortable 24-point victory. The 108-84 victory fell in line with
the two teams’ records, and the 6-1 in conference play Buckeyes handed the Nittany Lions their seventh Big Ten loss in their seventh conference game of the season.
With under two minutes remaining in the second quarter, the game was anything but decided and Penn State sat two points back until Ohio State ran away in the second half. The Buckeyes’ performance showed the best and the challenging parts of the 2025-26 Ohio State Buckeyes. Here are the lessons learned:
Defensive Lapse
The Buckeyes were a force from the opening tip. Ohio State started on a 14-point run and Penn State missed its first 10 shots and had six turnovers in less than five game minutes. Then some good, albeit unexpected, three-point shooting and expected interior scoring shrunk the Buckeye lead.
“I do think our defense was really poor tonight, and it’s disappointing coming off a week where I really think the difference in the Illinois and Maryland games were our half court defense in some really tough moments,” head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters. “It looks like we regressed tonight.”
After Penn State settled down and got the Buckeyes to play half court defense in the first quarter, guard Moriah Murray and center Gracie Merkle took over. Ohio State’s zone in half court and quick passes in the full court press allowed Murray to settle into a successful game from deep. Before Wednesday, Murray averaged two made shots from beyond the arc per game since Big Ten basketball started back up on Dec. 28, 2025.
Murray started slow but after one fell, she went 3-of-5 from three-point range in the second quarter. Murray ended the night with eight made threes in 17 attempts for a team high 25 points, the junior guard’s best scoring night of the season.
Then there is Merkle, who makes baskets with relative ease. That high efficiency scoring continued against the Buckeyes, even though Ohio State knew what to expect from the Nittany Lions’ leading scorer. Merkle used her 6-foot-6 frame and ability to take contact into a 10-for-11 night shooting, and eight of her 21 points came in the first quarter.
“We had some strategies to try to disrupt that or slow that down, and we didn’t execute it very well from a defensive game plan standpoint,” McGuff said.
Ohio State’s tough defensive performance makes sense for such a young team. Having, and practicing, a game plan is one thing, but once Merkle stepped onto the court executing is difficult against the most efficient scorer in the nation. It was a similar defensive performance the Buckeyes showed against the No. 3 UCLA Bruins’ 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts who had 18 points and 16 rebounds against Ohio State at the end of 2025.
Interior offense
For all of Merkle’s efficiency inside the paint offensively, the Buckeyes showed improved offense of their own inside the paint. That did not come through brute force but with an outstanding night of passing.
To get around Merkle and the Penn State interior, Ohio State made quick and accurate passes. In the first quarter, each of the nine made baskets for the Buckeyes came through an assist. That meant no individual isolation offense but team basketball thrived and guard Kennedy Cambridge had five of the nine.
Ohio State edged Penn State out in paint scoring with a thin 44-42 margin, and 20 of those points came from enter Elsa Lemmilä who nearly matched Merkle with a 10-for-12 shooting night.
After the Sunday victory over the Maryland Terrapins, McGuff gave a team “dub crown,” the honor bestowed on a key performer in each win, due to a 22-assist night. Against Penn State, the Buckeyes had 32 assists, the most for Ohio State against a Big Ten opponent this season.
That is the second game this season with at least 30 assists for the Scarlet and Gray. For precedent if that is good or not, last season Ohio State never had a game where the team had more than 21 assists. So far this season the Buckeyes have five games with at least 22 assists.
“I thought we obviously played well in transition,” McGuff said. “In general, I thought our offense was fantastic, and the 32 assists are reflective of unselfish play and great execution.”
Shooting the three
Then there is the deep shooting performance of Ohio State. Wednesday was the third game in a row where the Buckeyes looked confident from beyond the arc, and results followed. At one point, Ohio State was the worst three-point shooting team in the conference, based on efficiency. In nonconference play, the Buckeyes shot 28.6% from deep, but in the last week that included games against two currently ranked Big Ten teams, Ohio State shot 43.8%.
“Early in year, I think we’re getting similar shots. I kept thinking earlier in the year that we have good shooters who make a lot of shots in practice, shooting open shots, and now they’re going in a little bit more,” McGuff said. “So, hopefully we can maintain that, and maybe people just have a little bit higher confidence level, and they’ve seen it go in a little more recently, but I think that’ll certainly be a big key for our continued success.”
Both Jaloni Cambridge and Chance Gray hit season highs in made shots from beyond the arc, with four and seven, respectively. Gray especially stood out in the second half where she went 5-for-6 from deep after a first half where Gray had five assists and eight points in more of a distributor role.
Wednesday was the second game in a row where at least six Buckeyes hit a three-point shot, and confidence is definitely part of the equation. Passing and interior play are the other key factors. When Lemmilä and forward Kylee Kitts thrived inside, the defense responded. Then, when accurate passes found open shooters, shots went in with higher frequency.
Ohio State’s all-around offensive performance helped create the program-tying record game of 17 made shots from beyond the arc. Coincidentally enough, the game the Buckeyes’ performance matched was also against the Nittany Lions, back on Feb. 7, 2010.
Bonus lesson: restrictive glasses straps
Against Maryland, fans and commentators noticed when Jaloni Cambridge’s glasses flew off her face. After Ohio State’s loss against UCLA, Cambridge vented about her lack of glasses strap, a problem she did not need until she stopped wearing her hair down.
Well, now Cambridge has a strap for the glasses and the grass is not greener.
“It’s not that nice. Honestly, I can’t really take them off when I want to, because wearing glasses all day, it’s a lot,” Cambridge said. “And I take them off just to give my face a breather, because it gets really sweaty.”
For anyone wondering, Cambridge’s glasses were strapped against the Terrapins too, but the physicality of the game caused the moment where officials stopped the game to find a lens.
“When we played Maryland, the lens came out because I kept getting smacked in the face, but the glasses stayed on,” Cambridge said. “So I played a couple possessions with them off because it was like I couldn’t I’d rather not be able to see it all than see through one eye.”
