On Nov. 17. 2024, Ohio State women’s basketball took on the Belmont Bruins. The year prior, the Buckeyes sailed to an easy 29-point win in the first game of a two year home-and-home series. But in Nashville, Tennessee on that November 2024 day, the waters were anything but calm. The Scarlet and Gray needed then-freshman guard Jaloni Cambridge to make plays on both ends of the court in the final minute, ultimately escaping with a narrow 67-63 victory.
A lot can change in a year, and now for the third
season in a row, the Buckeyes and Bruins will take to the court to battle. With the home-and-home series complete, the two programs will now face off in the Bahamas at the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship. While the Big Ten schedule still has a few weeks before it gets into full swing, Monday’s game against Belmont will show what kind of team Ohio State will carry into that grueling, 18-game conference slate.
Belmont Bruins
A win for the Bruins against the Buckeyes would only be an upset in the sense that Ohio State belongs to a power conference, and the Bruins do not. Belmont is a team with upperclassmen leadership — they play organized basketball, and do not shy away from tough teams.
Ohio State is the third of four power schools scheduled by the Bruins this season. After a 17-point defeat to the No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners to start the season, Belmont nearly stole an away win from the No. 12 Tennessee Volunteers on Nov. 13, leading late in the fourth quarter in Knoxville but ultimately falling to the host team, 68-58.
So far this season, Ohio State’s wins all have come against mid-major programs where there was not much competition in the second half of games. That will not be the case against Belmont. Monday has the makings of the first battle that could test the Buckeyes’ late game ability, after the 32-point defeat to the UConn Huskies showed there may be a steep learning curve for this young Ohio State roster.
Junior guard Jailyn Banks, whose 15.4 points per game leads Belmont, is the de-facto leader of the team. The third-year Belmont athlete is a two-time All-Mountain Valley Conference (MVC) selection and is having the best season of her NCAA career.
Last year, Banks scored only eight points on 2-of-7 shooting in the narrow defeat to Ohio State, but had three steals. This season, the guard’s defense has been even better. She averages 2.2 steals per game, a jump from 1.3 steals in her first two seasons. The junior leads the Belmont defense that plays strong, organized, half-court defense. Banks will follow Cambridge up and down the court on Monday to try and limit Ohio State’s leading scorer.
Ohio State’s guards will not have an easy day on offense, with sixth-year senior guard Tuti Jones — who has played her entire career at Belmont — pairing up with Banks. Jones leads the MVC with 2.8 steals per game, and had four against Ohio State last season.
“We’re gonna need to be really good on Monday,” said head coach Kevin McGuff following the Wednesday win over Kent State. “They’re [Belmont] a great team, and so our growth and progress needs to be — very quickly.”
Elsa Lemmilä Status
Absent from the 88-68 win for Ohio State on Wednesday was center Elsa Lemmilä. Each Buckeyes game has ended with McGuff commenting on the Finnish center’s continued recovery from two offseason surgeries, but Lemmilä sat on the bench with a short term leg injury during Ohio State’s 88-68 win over Kent State.
McGuff said Lemmilä is day-to-day at this point, so her status on Monday will come within a couple hours of the start of the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship game.
Ohio State needed some time, but eventually did adjust to the different lineup against the Golden Flashes. McGuff went with four guards and redshirt freshman Kylee Kitts in the de-facto center role. With all of the recovery time away for Lemmilä this summer, Ohio State trained with different lineups, and one included Kitts in the five position.
Belmont cannot match the Buckeyes in height. The inside matchup, if Lemmilä cannot go for Ohio State, will likely be Kitts against sophomore forward Hillary Fuller. The 6-foot-2 forward only averaged five minutes per game last season, but started the last four for the Bruins. Fuller is the second leading scorer for Belmont at 13 points per game.
A four-guard lineup for Ohio State could go a long way against the Bruins. With senior transfer guard T’yana Todd on the court alongside Jaloni Cambridge, Chance Gray and Kennedy Cambridge, the Buckeyes are faster and have stronger outside shooting to contend with the Bruins deep shooting attack. Belmont is second in the MVC this season with 8.6 made three-point shots per game.
The Buckeyes average 7.5 per game, but shoot a Big Ten low 26.3% per game from long distance. Ohio State has eight made threes in the last three games.
What’s Next
Ohio State will have a quick turnaround during the “tournament.” Whoever wins Monday’s 11:00 a.m. ET game faces the winner of the No. 23 West Virginia Mountaineers and the McNeese State Cowgirls on November 26 at 1:30 p.m. ET.
The likely winner of that second game is the ranked West Virginia side, who already has a marquee win this season when a five-player roster defeated the No. 15 Duke Blue Devils after a fight at the end of the first half disqualified all but five players on the Mountaineers’ roster.
A game against the Mountaineers for the Buckeyes is not guaranteed with Belmont on the other bench. If Ohio State was to fall to the Bruins, they would face the loser of the WVU- McNeese State game at 11:00 a.m. ET on November 26.
