In what was hopefully the first game of a deep tournament run, No. 3 Ohio State women’s basketball routed No. 14 Howard on the Buckeyes’ home turf Saturday, 75-54.
Though the Bison kept things close early, once the Buckeyes pulled away, they never looked back, and in the process, OSU signaled how tournament-ready they are. Here are three things we learned about what we can expect from this team heading into round two.
OSU’s defense has the potential to be destructive
A big reason the Buckeyes were able to create so much separation in Saturday’s game
was their dominant defensive effort. The Buckeyes gave up just four points in the second quarter, and the opportunities they generated off defensive pressure were perhaps never more evident than during a 30-2 run that started late in the first quarter and extended into the second.
Turnovers, a strength of this Buckeye team all season, played a major role in this run, with the Buckeyes forcing five turnovers during the run alone to give themselves a lot of breathing room. The Bison finished the game with just three assists, their lowest of the season. It’s a testament to how much pressure the defense put on the Bison—and just how disruptive OSU was to their offensive structure—that they couldn’t sustain any offensive rhythm they had at the outset.
They’ll need this defense on Monday against Notre Dame as they try to contain Hannah Hidalgo and the Fighting Irish offense. If they can continue to channel this disruptive energy to shut down Hidalgo and increase the tempo, they’ll have a decent shot at their first Sweet Sixteen berth since 2023.
At its best, the Buckeye offense is explosive
If Jaloni Cambridge was disappointed by her performance in the Buckeyes’ Big Ten Tournament loss to UCLA, you wouldn’t know it from Saturday’s outing. The sophomore put up 21 points and tacked on 2 blocks and 3 steals for good measure, accounting for 10 points in an impressive second quarter.
Chance Gray, Kennedy Cambridge, and Ava Watson each added 11 points a piece in the decisive victory.
When they were playing at their peak Saturday, the defensive effort created opportunities and the Buckeyes capitalized offensively, giving off an air of unstoppability, most notably on that big second-quarter run.
Though they’ll need to find a way to sustain this firepower for longer stretches the deeper they get into this tournament, Saturday’s outing was a reminder that if you give this team an inch, it’s highly likely they will take a mile. When this offense fires on all cylinders, they have the power to take complete control of both the tempo and the outcome of a game, exactly like they did against the Bison.
Resilience continues to be a strength
You wouldn’t know it from looking at the final score, but the game was competitive early, with five lead changes in the first eight minutes. The Buckeyes went 2-for-6 shooting to start the game and held a narrow 20-15 lead at the end of the first quarter, thanks in large part to missed shots.
Turns out, they didn’t need a hot start to win big.
Coming off a loss in the Big Ten Tournament, the Buckeyes remained composed on their home court, shaking off the early jitters to turn their five-point lead into a 24-point advantage by halftime. In fact, after guard Chance Gray hit the first of two consecutive threes toward the end of the first, the Buckeyes never relinquished the lead again.
When the Buckeyes found themselves in foul trouble in the third quarter, the adversity didn’t rattle them. With Howard in the bonus early in the second half off six quick fouls from OSU (a pair of fouls each for point guard Jaloni Cambridge, center Elsa Lemmilä and forward Kylee Kitts), Ohio State still managed to rebound effectively and maintain a comfortable lead. That the Bison had so many opportunities to make shots and struggled to hit them, failing to close the gap in spite of the free chances, speaks to how in control the Buckeyes were.
Even after head coach Kevin McGuff received a technical (stemming from Kitts’ second foul, after which McGuff screamed at the refs), all it did was fuel the Buckeyes. Guard Kennedy Cambridge even went on the record to say the technical lit a fire for her to “go harder.”
Composure wasn’t necessarily a determining factor in a game they were in solid control of, but a lesser team might never have gained control to begin with after shooting trouble to start. Others might have given away some of that control after the fouls in the third.
Instead, this team stared adversity in the face and dared it to interfere with their plans. So much of tournament success is won in the intangibles—Do you get in your own way? Do you rattle easily? McGuff’s Buckeyes proved today that they don’t, regrouping when the shots didn’t fall early to find a way to victory.
Certainly, a team like Notre Dame might not be as forgiving of critical mistakes, and the deeper the Buckeyes get into the tournament, the less likely they are to have such a wide lead to fall back on, but early adversity won’t do anything but give them a blueprint for improvement in the next outing, and to that end, they rose to the occasion and know what they need to fix before Monday.
Up next, the Buckeyes face the No. 6-seed Fighting Irish in the second round this Monday at 4:00 PM ET in Columbus.
