The first weekend of Big Ten women’s basketball is in the books, and it featured a wide range of results. A 48-point blowout for the No. 6 Michigan Wolverines over the Purdue Boilermakers, a shocking 78-64 home win for the Wisconsin Badgers over then No. 20 Michigan State, and a double-overtime thriller where the Minnesota Golden Gophers gave up a late nine-point lead in the final overtime period to a No. 7 Maryland Terrapins side without Kaylene Smikle.
Big Ten coaches love to say that the conference
is the best from top to bottom of any in the country, which is tough to confirm, but there is something that is not — when a team goes into a game unprepared, they can and will lose.
That was almost the case for No. 21 Ohio State women’s basketball on Sunday, against unranked Northwestern.
“We weren’t ready to go,” head coach Kevin McGuff told Land-Grant Holy Land. “And you can’t do that, and you can’t really do it anytime in Big Ten play, especially. We didn’t look focused or ready to start the game the way we need to be successful in this league.”
By the end of the first quarter, Ohio State trailed Wildcats forward Grace Sullivan 14-10, with her Northwestern teammates chipping in another 2 points to bring the first period score to 16-10. Sullivan torched the Buckeyes from midrange on 7-for-10 shooting, and most of those baskets came uncontested for the 6-foot-4 forward.
In that first 10 minutes, point guard NUCaroline Lau, who entered Sunday with 8.9 assists per game, already had six alone with Sullivan. The two seniors made the Buckeyes’ defense look like it was run by a team of underclassmen, which is mostly true.
“Our post defense was dreadful, and she [Sullivan] was good around the basket,” said McGuff. “She was good away from the basket, and we just didn’t make anything hard on her today. We’ll have to be significantly better in that area against some of the teams that we’re going to be playing here before too long.“
Sullivan ended the day with 33 points, and Lau had 14 assists (10 of which went to Sullivan).
These Buckeye laments read like an obituary for a defeat, but Ohio State recovered. Outside of Northwestern’s first line of starters, there was not much to test McGuff’s side, and the Buckeyes eventually woke up. It also helped that point guard Jaloni Cambridge came back into the game.
The first quarter saw the younger Cambridge sister pick up two quick fouls, and the guard had to sit for almost six minutes of action. Jaloni Cambridge, who fouled out for the fifth time in 37 career games, is not a stranger to hearing whistles directed at her play. However, McGuff got the guard back onto the court in the second quarter, at a time when the Buckeyes were already getting back into the contest.
Ohio State made it a two-possession game when Jaloni Cambridge came back in and scored six points. Fellow Buckeye guard Kennedy Cambridge added two steals and three assists in the second quarter and a six-point deficit turned into an eight-point lead entering halftime. The Buckeyes earned a nine-point win that looked closer than the game ended up being due to a seven-point Northwestern run in the last 48 seconds of the game.
What contributed to such a slow start?
A week prior, the Buckeyes had a 98-point victory over the Niagara Purple Eagles in a game that did not exactly challenge the power conference side. That win came four days after Ohio State traveled home from the Bahamas and the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship, where the Buckeyes came back from a late seven-point deficit to defeat the then No. 21-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers.
Could it be a week-off-induced daze following a busy stretch of early-season basketball? McGuff has another theory.
“I don’t know if we kind of overlooked them a little bit, but that’s a really dangerous way to start a Big Ten game,” said McGuff.
Jaloni Cambridge took a more constructive view of the win. After the victory, the sophomore who acts more like a senior played the role of supportive teammate.
“It was a terrible, soft start for us. But at the end of the day, whether you’re doing good or bad, being able to pick that up and lift your teammates up, whether you’re on the court or not, says a lot,” Jaloni Cambridge told Land-Grant Holy Land. “Obviously, we don’t want that to happen. But you know, life isn’t always perfect, so just being able to bounce back is what I’m really proud of for this team.”
As is the case with Ohio State this season, as the Cambridge sisters go, so go the Buckeyes. Jaloni Cambridge led the team with 22 points. Kennedy Cambridge met her conference-leading four steals per game average and led the team with six assists. Freshman forward Kylee Kitts also hit a career high 18 points, all in the second half after a lackluster first quarter sent the forward to the bench for the entire second quarter.
Both McGuff and Jaloni Cambridge played their off-court roles well after the game. Sunday was the first of 18 conference games. At the end of that run of games, the win over Northwestern will be nothing more than a number on the left column of Ohio State’s in-conference win-loss record.
How Ohio State responds will dictate how high that left number climbs.
The Buckeyes are 20 days away from testing their conference ability. On Thursday, a run of four non-conference games begins, before getting back to Big Ten play in a matchup against the No. 4 UCLA Bruins three days after the Christmas holiday. The next almost three weeks give Ohio State time to either show that Sunday’s start was just a fluke or that the last game it played against a top-five team in the nation, the 100-68 defeat at the hands of No. 1 UConn on Nov. 18, is in line with the Scarlet and Gray’s 2025-26 season ceiling.
