Fresh off a top-10 victory over the TCU Horned Frogs, No. 12 Ohio State women’s basketball was back in Columbus Thursday night against the 0-7 in Big Ten play Indiana Hoosiers. The game sandwiched between top-10 games, with the No. 10 Iowa Hawkeyes ahead on Sunday, favored Ohio State on paper, but Indiana came prepared, while the Buckeyes missed a starter due to injury. Even so, the Scarlet and Gray came back from 15 points down to defeat the Crimson of Indiana 81-67.
First quarter
Ohio State entered Thursday night’s
later start without forward Kylee Kitts. The forward had two moments against the TCU Horned Frogs on Monday that took her out of the game temporarily. Kitts returned after taking an elbow to the face, but in the second half, Kitts appeared to injure her shoulder.
The Hoosiers looked like a team that had eight days off to start the game. Indiana shot 7-for-9 from the floor, and five of those baskets came from beyond the arc. In comparison, the Buckeyes were 2-for-9, and with just under six minutes of the game complete, Ohio State had a 15-point deficit to try and erase.
Guard Ava Watson started in Kitts’ place as the Buckeyes’ fourth guard and helped slow the fierce Indiana start. Watson hit the Buckeyes’ first three-point shot of the game, and it started a 13-point run for Ohio State. Defensively, Watson had three steals in the first quarter, and they all came in the run that cut the 15-point Hoosier lead to four at the end of the quarter.
Fouls-wise, point guard Jaloni Cambridge and center Elsa Lemmilä each earned two fouls in the first 10 minutes, which put both on the bench for a spell.
Second quarter
Ohio State’s defense got the Buckeyes back into the game and held Indiana to only three shot attempts in the first four minutes of the second quarter. That gave the Scarlet and Gray time to cut the lead down to one point, but when the offense went cold, the defense followed. The Buckeyes went 3-for-5 in the final five minutes of the quarter, and when Indiana scored, they added points in bunches.
Even under defensive pressure, Indiana made shots regularly and hit seven baskets in a row. The Hoosiers’ top scorers, guards Lenée Beaumont and Shay Ciezki, scored 30 of Indiana’s 42 first-half points and only missed three combined shots in 14 attempts.
Third quarter
Out of halftime, the Buckeyes had their usual third-quarter surge and forced four turnovers in the first half of the quarter. Ohio State’s offense did not have the same surge, but a 1-for-4 start from the Hoosiers allowed the Buckeyes to cut the 10-point halftime deficit in half.
However, in the process, Lemmilä picked up her fourth foul of the game and a trip to the bench, which made Ohio State go with a five-guard set. When Lemmilä left, Ohio State was already down 22-12 in the rebounding margin.
Even so, the five-guard group worked for the Buckeyes, and they outpaced Indiana. That made the full-court press more dangerou,s and in less than 30 seconds, Ohio State forced two steals and followed both of them with three-point shots. The two baskets gave the Buckeyes their first lead of the game with 3:34 remaining in the third quarter.
Fourth quarter
Ohio State outscored Indiana 16-9 to end the first quarter and continud that momentum in the fourth. The Buckeyes’ 10-point halftime deficit flipped to an eight-point lead with seven minutes left in the game. Indiana’s mission in the quarter appeared to be getting Lemmilä to foul out of the game as the Hoosiers abandoned the deep shot early in favor of runs to the basket.
Instead, it was Ciezki who fouled out with 4:42 remaining. That is when guard Kennedy Cambridge went to the basket, absorbed the guard’s contact and hit a jumper in the paint. Cambridge’s basket and Ciezki’s trip to the bench came when Ohio State grew its lead to nine points.
Without Indiana’s best offensive player on the court, the streak of seven Big Ten losses in a row continued for the Hoosiers.
Number of the game: 21
Before Thursday, Ohio State’s season low for rebounds was 24, in a comeback win over the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Bahamas back in November. Against Indiana, the Buckeyes grabbed only 21 rebounds but still found a way to defeat the Hoosiers who, despite sitting last in the conference with 32.2 rebounds per game, grabbed 28 against Ohio State.
It showed that without Kitts in the lineup, Ohio State needs to be creative to grab boards consistently.
Key performers
Ohio State
- Ava Watson: 12 points, 6 steals
- Kennedy Cambridge: 13 points, 6 steals
- Jaloni Cambridge: 22 points, 5 assists
Indiana
- Lenée Beaumont: 20 points
- Shay Ciezki: 19 points
- Zania Socka-Nguemen: 11 points, 10 rebounds
Up Next
The Buckeyes head to Iowa City to continue the long-running rivalry between Ohio State and Iowa. This season, Iowa worked its way up to No. 10 in the Associated Press’ weekly poll and is playing a different game than previous editions of the Hawkeyes.
Iowa takes fewer threes and instead focuses inside with forward Hannah Stuelke and standout freshman center Ava Heiden, who leads Iowa with 16.1 points per game. Ohio State has not won in Iowa City since the 2022-23 season. That 92-88 Buckeye victory ended up being the reason Ohio State won a share of that year’s regular-season championship.
Thursday night, Iowa was in College Park, Maryland, against the No. 15 Maryland Terrapins. Despite losing an 11-point lead with two minutes remaining, the Hawkeyes adjusted and beat the Terps in overtime, 85-78.
