On Sunday, the No. 13 Ohio State women’s basketball team traveled to East Lansing, Michigan, and nearly ran the No. 15 Michigan State Spartans out of their own gym. The victory gave the Scarlet and Gray much-needed momentum and an edge over a team ranked two spots ahead of them in the NCAA Tournament committee’s top-16. Throw in a program record 18 three-point shots made, and it was a good day for the Buckeyes.
In addition to all of that, guard Kennedy Cambridge broke a 41-year program record with
her 116th steal of the season. A record that should have happened four days prior, against the Michigan Wolverines.
“I know for a fact I had it,” Kennedy Cambridge told reporters. “Chance [Gray] was nowhere near me when they gave it to her; it was my first steal of the game.”
With 6:49 remaining in the first quarter of the Buckeyes’ loss to the Wolverines, Kennedy Cambridge grabbed a steal that would not go to her. Basketball is a fast game, stats are entered manually, and mistakes can happen. After Sunday’s win, Kennedy Cambridge told Big Ten Network commentator and former Michigan Wolverine forward, Shimmy Miller, that she could have gotten it fixed following the Thursday loss, but would rather earn the record after a win.
For OSU’s older Cambridge, confidence is not in short supply, and it is part of what makes the redshirt junior such an effective defender. The guard makes stops and picks up steals because there is nearly no second-guessing what she is going to do on the floor.
Sometimes it is hitting another gear to run up behind a player and poke the ball away; other times, there are moments where a collision is imminent, but Kennedy barrels forward anyway. Once the decision is made to get in the passing lane to take the ball, Cambridge is going to be there.
In the third quarter of Sunday’s game, Ohio State lost the ball on offense, and it rolled into the backcourt. All-Big Ten star Grace VanSlooten ran back to get the ball, and with two of her Spartan teammates near her, it looked like a clear change of possession. However, seemingly out of nowhere, Cambridge leapt towards the ball, slid down the court, and retained Ohio State the ball’s possession.
“She’s crazy, in a good way, but she’s crazy,” Kennedy’s younger sister Jaloni told reporters last week after OSU’s victory over the USC Trojans. “She’s very determined. She gets what she wants.”
Kennedy did not realize that she was closing in on the steals record until she saw an Instagram post that showed that she was only two away from guard Yvette Angel’s 1984-85 single-season mark. Even when asked, Cambridge opted to put the importance on the team’s win over anything else that happened on Sunday.
Ohio State works in a vacuum, like many teams. Head coach Kevin McGuff is careful to never speculate too far into the future, does not publicly think about rankings, and focuses only on the next game. The program keeps tunnel vision, which was evident in the fact that neither Cambridge nor her teammates realized that the record was within reach.
However, that does not mean that there are no individual goals. Cambridge’s record is a small step in a greater plan that the guard is not afraid to share.
“The biggest thing is becoming Defensive Player of the Year, hopefully I get it,” Cambridge said. “That’s the goal. If it’s not met, we have another year, and then the end goal is National Defensive Player of the Year.”
On Tuesday, the Big Ten’s regular season honors will be revealed live on “B1G Today,” starting at 12 noon ET. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame already included the Buckeye guard in its watchlist for National Player of the Year.
It is hard to argue against Kennedy Cambridge as a top contender in the Big Ten. In addition to leading the conference in steals and steals per game, her 79.1 defensive rating leads the conference, tied with UCLA center Lauren Betts. As much as her sister Jaloni’s conference-leading 23.4 points per game has the Buckeyes competing near the top of the Big Ten, Kennedy’s impact on defense is arguably as important.
Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s awards announcements, the Buckeyes play on Thursday against either the Nebraska Cornhuskers or Indiana Hoosiers, teams that Kennedy Cambridge had a combined 13 steals against in the regular season. Should the votes not go Cambridge’s way, her shoulders will not drop. Kennedy has shown time and time again that she cannot be defeated.
“If we don’t get it, we got another year,” Kennedy Cambridge said. “We figure out what we did wrong this year, and then we come back harder next.”
