The point guard out of Tennessee led Ohio State in the penultimate week of the regular season
On Monday, the Big Ten announced their weekly honors for the top overall player and best freshman of the previous week. For the third time this season, No. 12 Ohio State women’s basketball point guard Jaloni Cambridge received the honor as the top freshman in the conference.
After fouling out the week prior against the Minnesota Golden Gophers, therefore missing overtime when the Buckeyes lost a 14-point lead in the final five minutes, Cambridge came on strong against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Monday. In another overtime thriller, Cambridge led Ohio State with 29 points, tying the guard’s single game high she reached on the first night of the 2024-25 season, against the Cleveland State Vikings.
This time though it was against a power conference side, led by guard Lucy Olsen who seemingly couldn’t miss in the final minutes of the game to send the rivalry matchup to overtime. Cambridge led Ohio State with six points in the extra period to give the Buckeyes an 86-78 victory.
Cambridge led the Buckeyes again on Thursday in Bloomington with 18 points against the Indiana Hoosiers. The guard added team highs with four rebounds and four steals in the defeat to Indiana, but pushed Ohio State to cut an 18-point deficit at the beginning of the fourth quarter to the eventual 71-61 loss to the Hoosiers.
Then, to close the week out, Cambridge shined again with 20 points, 5 assists and 4 steals in 24 minutes against the Purdue Boilermakers. Cambridge didn’t play more because it was a rout, ending with a program home record for beating a conference opponent by 52 points.
In three games last week, Cambridge averaged 22.3 points, 3.7 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 3.0 steals.
The Buckeyes end the regular season against No. 23 Michigan State on Thursday and No. 19 Maryland on Sunday. Ohio State needs Cambridge to continue playing the best basketball of her debut season to lock in a top-four seed in the Big Ten Tournament and a top-16 seed in March Madness. The former gives the Scarlet and Gray a double-bye in the conference tournament while the latter saves the Buckeyes the postseason travel by hosting the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
This Freshman of the Week honor ties Cambridge with Michigan guard Syla Swords with three, the most in the Big Ten. However, it’s not the most in Ohio State program history. That honor goes to junior forward Cotie McMahon who secured six Freshman of the Week awards in the 22-23 season.
Last week, Cambridge’s childhood AAU teammate Ava Watson won the award, giving the Buckeyes their first season with different award winners since the debut season of Jacy Sheldon, Madison Greene and Kierstan Bell in the 19-20 season. Bell transferred to Florida Gulf Coast University after one season in Columbus.