Freshmen, veterans, and does the rivalry extend beyond football?
On Wednesday, No. 9 Ohio State women’s basketball makes the three-hour drive north to take on the No. 25 Michigan Wolverines. It’s a ranked matchup for the first time since the 2023 Big Ten Tournament and the Buckeyes enter this year’s edition of the rivalry coming off two different performances against the Wolverines last season.
The last time these two played at the Crisler Center, the Wolverines frustrated the Buckeyes in a 69-60 Michigan victory that propelled a 15-game winning streak. That run of consecutive victories culminated in a 67-51 blowout win for the Buckeyes over the very same Michigan side to secure the outright Big Ten title.
This time around, both the Buckeyes and Wolverines feature overhauled rosters, loaded with fresh names to not only the rivalry but college basketball as a whole. Which side’s trio of talented freshmen will stand out? How will the veteran leaders take fair in the matchup and does the infamous Ohio State vs. Michigan rivalry known as The Rivalry, extend to all sports, or has football taken it over?
Here are three things to watch on Wednesday night in Ann Arbor.
Trios of Freshmen
At this point of the season, the group of Michigan freshmen are well known throughout the college basketball ranks. The Wolverines are proving that a starting lineup with three freshmen can surprise people, in a good way.
They’re led by No. 4 overall prospect Syla Swords. The youngest player to play for Team Canada’s senior team, debuting at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Swords made her mark right away, scoring 27 points and adding 12 rebounds in the first game of the season when Michigan nearly defeated the reigning championship-winning South Carolina Gamecocks.
The 6-foot guard leads Michigan with 16.4 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. She plays alongside fellow freshman Olivia Olson (No. 20 2024 recruit) who averages 15.4 points per game. Then there’s Mila Holloway, the first-year point guard averaging the ninth-highest assists per game (4.2).
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Together, the trio of freshmen have led the Wolverines to a strong start to the season, despite losing four games (all coming against top-10 opponents). On Wednesday, returning home from a long trip to the West Coast, they have a trio that may not get as many minutes as the starting three, but each has come into their own this season for the Buckeyes.
Point Guard Jaloni Cambridge is likeliest to go up against Holloway, which is a favorable Ohio State matchup with giving up the second most turnovers in the conference (52) against the No. 2 overall recruit Cambridge’s 2.5 steals per game.
Offensively, Cambridge is the equivalent of a Formula One car getting off the starting line. Since returning from a shoulder injury, Cambridge led the Buckeyes with 20 points against Northwestern on Sunday, including six rebounds and three assists.
For the Buckeyes, it isn’t only Cambridge showing up in her first year. Fellow guard Ava Watson’s begun to see her responsibilities grow. After coming off the bench behind Madison Greene and Kennedy Cambridge, head coach Kevin McGuff has rewarded the freshman with more minutes after her three-point shooting has improved and she’s contributed defensively.
“I just think for shooters like herself, going from high school to college, the speed of the game is different,” said McGuff. “And they’re running at you, and they’re more athletic. And so now I think she’s moving really well without the ball, and she’s able to get those shots up, even with the speed of the game being more so than what she saw in high school.”
Watson’s averaged 20 minutes in the last six games, averaging 9.7 points and 2.3 three-pointers made at a 40 percent clip. Defensively, the guard who played in a similar press in high school averaged 1.7 steals off the bench too.
Then there’s 6-foot-6 center Elsa Lemmilä. The Finnish big excelled in the non-conference schedule against mid-major sides but is still working on getting her footing in conference play. Against Rutgers, Lemmilä only played two minutes, with McGuff opting for the experience of Eboni Walker going up against Rutgers’ forward Destiny Adams.
It almost looked like it’d be a similar day against Northwestern when Lemmilä picked up four fouls in four minutes, but showed upperclassmen patience to return to the game and play 13 second-half minutes, scoring 11 points with four rebounds and two blocks. Lemmilä is third in the conference in blocks (30) and blocks per game (2.1).
Wednesday has the makings for any of the six to make their name known, with each playing important roles in their programs.
Don’t Forget the Upperclassmen
It’s not only the freshmen who will make their mark. There are upperclassmen for both Big Ten sides who can put the game on their shoulders, especially in the interior.
Ohio State bolstered their presence around the paint with former Kentucky forward Ajae Petty. Against Northwestern, Petty was overwhelmed by multiple Wildcat bigs clogging the paint but should have more room to work against Michigan. Petty’s averaging 7.9 rebounds per game, the first Buckeye to grab that many since the 20-21 season.
Before Sunday’s 30-point Ohio State win, Petty shot 70.3 percent from the floor in the previous eight games. That stretch included two double-doubles and 14.5 points per game. Petty is likely going to face pressure from senior guard Jordan Hobbs. Although she’s labeled as a senior, Hobbs is a 6-foot-3 ball of energy for head coach Kim Barnes Arico, who plays physically and will aim to stop Petty’s movement and high-efficiency shooting.
Hobbs will also have forwards Cotie McMahon and Taylor Thierry to work around. Offensively, any of the five starting Buckeyes is a danger to score, with all five averaging at least double figures per game scoring. What will dictate the game is how the veterans orchestrate the defense.
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“Our offense is not a problem but there’s just things that we really do need to lock in on defense that can potentially cost us,” said McMahon. “So just kind of taking each game and make sure that we kind of focus on what we’re capable of doing as far as defense and making sure that we’re doing the right things, making the right reads, and just playing within what we do.”
How Deep Does “The Rivalry” Go?
Ask most Michigan or Ohio State fans which college team they dislike the most and they’re likely to say the other one. It’s a rivalry that causes street signs to be vandalized one week of the year and gives a superiority complex to one side of the other depending on the results of a sporting event.
That sporting event is a football game. It’s what football fans countdown to each season, it’s what players receive clothing-related pieces of jewelry if they win and if there ends up being multiple losses in a row, it can mean fans calling for the firing of a coach despite their overall record with the team.
Ask athletes and they’re going to follow suit and make their thoughts known about wanting to beat the other side. Ohio State forward Cotie McMahon wants to beat the other side, but it doesn’t go beyond the fact that she’s a born competitor.
When asked if she feels the rivalry like other teams at the university, it was an emphatic “I don’t.”
“The fans kind of make it more serious than it needs to be,” said McMahon. “But I mean, hey, go bucks!”
In past seasons, players went the company lines, saying they wanted to beat “that team up north” from multiple Buckeye press conference locations. McMahon is someone who wears her thoughts and emotions out for folks to see, and there’s no reason to doubt her comments or think of them as a way to say Michigan isn’t that important or anything. McMahon sees it as another game that she wants her team to win.
How does that apply to the court on Wednesday? There will be an arena full of fans in Maize and Blue who disagree that the rivalry doesn’t mean much, and swarms of fans at home, or those who make the drive, too.
Will it be more intense of a game for the Scarlet and Gray? It’s arguably the strongest test of the season to date with sides like the Illinois Fighting Illini starting to move towards the middle of the Big Ten pack and the Stanford Cardinal looking like a ghost of their former program.
That itself should drive more emotion into the game but it’s interesting to see how plays respond to the idea of the rivalry with so many new faces added to it. Not only the three consistent freshmen on both sides but players like Petty or guard Chance Gray who came in from Oregon in the offseason.
Either way, the good thing is that anyone can make the game into whatever they want it to be, regardless if a player in the game agrees.