Ohio State women give up late double-digit lead, but beat Iowa in overtime 86-78

Despite being up 12 with 1:38 left in regulation, the Buckeyes allowed Iowa to send the game to overtime.

No. 8 Ohio State women’s basketball (22-3, 11-3) renewed their rivalry with the Iowa Hawkeyes (18-8, 8-7) on Monday afternoon but the Buckeyes didn’t make it easy for the second straight game. The Scarlet and Gray blew a 12-point lead with 1:38 remaining, but Jaloni Cambridge scored six points in overtime to lead the Buckeyes over the Hawkeyes 86-78.

A criticism of the women’s basketball Buckeyes this season has been that they have not always turned in complete performances. Ohio State has seemed to take a quarter off here and there, much to the chagrin of head coach Kevin McGuff and team leaders like junior forward Cotie McMahon.

In the first half against Iowa, the Buckeyes played a complete 20 minutes with nobody in the arena knowing the score with the scoreboard down in the Schottenstein Center. It put the crowd in the same position as the players who famously are known for not paying attention to the score. Whether that’s believed or not, Ohio State fans had to find out how it worked themselves.

Freshman guard Jaloni Cambridge and McMahon got Ohio State going early, scoring the first 10 points of the game for the home side. Defensively, the concern for the Scarlet and Gray was the play of Iowa forward Hannah Stuelke but the Buckeyes were up for the challenge, holding the junior to six first-half points on 3-of-7 shooting with the play of forward Ajae Petty and center Elsa Lemmilä.

For Petty, the graduate senior had a promising start, picking up four quick rebounds and an assist, but suffered from foul issues and played six minutes with three fouls.

Lemmilä picked up where Petty left off and then some. The 6-foot-6 center played 14 minutes of the half, and forced tough inside shots for Stuelke, with Lemmilä blocking the Iowa forward from behind on one drive. On offense, the center also decided her hand at deep threes, something that McGuff wants for the freshman in her trajectory as a Buckeye.

Cambridge led all scorers in the first half with 13 points, starting off quickly with nine points in the first quarter. Older sister Kennedy Cambridge followed her sister’s lead and went 2-of-2 from beyond the arc in the first half plus a layup that the phrase “circus layup” doesn’t do it nearly enough justice.

The redshirt sophomore went to the basket and got tripped up. As Cambridge went to the ground, her body turned and the guard threw the ball up in the air and it went cleanly inside the basket. Cambridge followed it with a free throw for nine points in the half. The Cambridge sisters combined for 22 of Ohio State’s 34 points and the Buckeyes took a 34-21 lead into the halftime locker room.

In the second half, the interior defense that was so strong in the first half stumbled at the start of the third quarter, with Stuelke and graduate senior Lucy Olsen each getting to the rim with relative ease, trimming the Buckeye lead to eight points after just over three minutes of the quarter.

Iowa’s run continued through an early Buckeyes timeout and halfway through the third the lead shrunk to five points with five minutes remaining. Of the Hawkeyes’ 14 points, eight came inside the paint. Offensively, Ohio State went 2-of-8 from the field, with two misses coming from beyond the arc.

Coach McGuff changed course and began going to the basket. The Buckeyes scored six of the next eight points to bring their lead near double-digits. Ohio State’s defense held the Hawkeyes to no points in over four minutes of game clock.

Key in the run were Cambridge and McMahon, picking up the game where it started and scoring nine of Ohio State’s last 11 points. McMahon especially picked up intensity near the end of the third quarter with plays at the rim. After hitting two free throws, McMahon went to the basket but missed the layup.

McMahon kept up with the play and got her own offensive rebound, hit a second-chance layup, and got hit on the shot. It put McMahon at a different level of intensity, stomping her foot and yelling in excitement.

Iowa responded with a layup, cutting the deficit to seven points to start the fourth quarter and keeping the pressure going into the fourth quarter. The Hawkeyes started the quarter scoring seven of the first nine points and it cut the lead to a single possession.

McMahon again came to Ohio State’s rescue. First, it was another run into the paint for a contested layup. Then it was a forced turnover on defense, with McMahon timing a dribble, poking the ball away,y and running the fast break alone to hit a layup that put the Buckeyes back up six points with 6:52 remaining in the game.

With five minutes remaining, and Ohio State up five points, McGuff took out his starting shooting guard Chance Gray for Kennedy Cambridge. The redshirt sophomore and freshman Lemmilä, who started the fourth quarter and through the end of the game, showed McGuff’s preferred five players in the pressure situation.

Both Kennedy Cambridge and Lemmilä heightened the Scarlet and Gray defense and Iowa went on a scoreless run of nearly three minutes, ended by an impressive contested layup by Kylie Feuerbach, who had 12 points in the second half before fouling out with 57 seconds remaining. Iowa’s cold spell led to a six-point run for Ohio State, building up a nine-point lead with 3:51 remaining.

Ohio State became too much for the Hawkeyes to handle late in the fourth, going 7-of-9 in the final 7:09 of the game. Continued pressure from McMahon and Kennedy Cambridge extended the lead to 12 points, forcing a timeout from head coach Jan Jensen and Iowa.

The Hawkeyes began focusing on deep shooting in the final minute to trim down the lead, and with missed Buckeye free throws late in the quarter, Iowa stayed in the game.

Then, with Ohio State up five points, Kennedy Cambridge inbounded a pass directly to the Hawkeyes who missed a three-point shot by Olsen but ended in three points from guard Sydney Affolter who hit a layup and free throw to cut the Buckeye lead to one point with 16.1 seconds remaining.

The Scarlet and Gray got the inbound pass off barely, with McMahon catching the pass and immediately getting fouled. The junior made the first but missed the second, giving the Buckeyes a two-point lead with 13.8 seconds remaining. On the rebound off of the missed free throw, the refs needed to review who the ball went out off, ending in possession given to the visitors with a chance to either tie or win the game.

On the drive, Ohio State used their last foul to give but on the next inbound, McMahon fouled Olsen who hit both to send the game into overtime. On the Ohio State inbound from the free throws, it looked like the Buckeyes didn’t know how much time was left, with Taylor Thierry dribbling for a few seconds and then throwing up a half-court shot two seconds after the buzzer went off.

In overtime, the Buckeyes offense struggled to get going, missing their first three shots of the extra period but Iowa didn’t do much better, making their first and following it up with two misses.

Then Jaloni Cambridge hit a basket to put the home side in the lead by a point. The freshman went into the paint, stopped, and hit a midrange floater. On the next defensive possession, Ohio State forced a shot clock violation and with 1:30 remaining the Buckeyes had a slight advantage over the Hawkeyes.

Ohio State got to the free throw line on the next possession, with Jaloni Cambridge hitting both to give the Buckeyes a three-point lead, timely free throw shooting that was missing in the fourth quarter.

Iowa cut the lead to one but then McMahon again went to the floor. The junior attacked the basket for a layup and a chance to make it a four-point game from the free-throw line but missed the opportunity.

On defense, Ohio State forced a rushed three but Iowa picked up the offensive rebound by Teagan Mallegni who went up for the layup but was blocked away by Kennedy Cambridge. The Buckeyes picked up the loose ball and Kennedy Cambridge sent a chest pass half the width of the court to hit Thierry on a fast break to extend the lead to five points.

Kennedy’s sister Jaloni Cambridge hit the next two free throws to put the game on ice and Ohio State won their eighth overtime game in a row and second at home against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

McMahon and Cambridge scored 25 and 29 points, respectively, with the remaining three starters scoring a combined 11 points. Kennedy Cambridge scored 16 points in the win, a new career high for the redshirt sophomore.

Olsen led the Hawkeyes with 27 points, 12 of which came in the fourth quarter and nine in three-point shots in the last 1:01 of the game. Affolter added 11 points and 15 rebounds. Ohio State held Stuelke to 10 points and five rebounds.

What’s Next

Ohio State is on the road for their next game, playing in their second to last road game of the regular season to face the Indiana Hoosiers on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. ET in a game airing on Peacock. The Hoosiers are up and down this season, adjusting to forward Mackenzie Holmes leaving college for the WNBA. Indiana has a 16-9 record, with an 8-6 record in Big Ten play.

Last season, the Buckeyes defeated the Hoosiers in their lone matchup 74-69, coming back from a five-point deficit at halftime. Ohio State hasn’t won a game in Bloomington since Jan. 28, 2021.