Buckeye and Cornhusker freshmen, battle of the bigs and a bounce back performance.
The No. 12 Ohio State women’s basketball team is back on the road, heading to Lincoln, Nebraska to face the Nebraska Cornhuskers. After losing away from Columbus last Sunday against Penn State, the Scarlet and Gray were back in form in the second half of Thursday’s game against No. 8 Maryland.
Now, it’s scarlet versus red, in a matchup that features two outstanding freshmen on the perimeter, size in the paint and a chance for one Ohio State player to bounce back against a tough Nebraska team.
Here are three things to watch in a matchup against two teams in the top five of the Big Ten standings:
Cambridge and Prince
On Monday, the Big Ten announced its weekly award winners. For Freshman of the Week, two players had to share the honor, and those two play against each other Sunday when point guard Jaloni Cambridge goes up against guard Britt Prince.
Last week, Prince made five three-point shots in Iowa City, Iowa, including a game-tying three in the final minute to bring the Cornhuskers back from an 11-point deficit. Plus, Prince added the two free throws at the death of regulation to send the game into overtime.
Prince scored 22 points in the overtime win, plus seven rebounds, six steals and five assists. It not only earned Prince a share of the Big Ten Freshman of the Week award, but the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) bestowed its national freshman of the week honor for the Nebraska native.
The Nebraska freshman is also building a strong rapport with forward Alexis Markowski, similar to the duo of Jaz Shelley and Markowski that the Buckeyes have faced over the past three season.
cannot get enough of this duo ‼️ pic.twitter.com/OSO4cfIIk3
— Nebraska Women’s Basketball (@HuskerWBB) January 21, 2025
Cambridge had an outstanding week in her own right, scoring 19 first half points against the Wisconsin Badgers and leading the Buckeyes with 27 points and eight rebounds. On Thursday, Cambridge led the team in scoring for the fifth time this season, scoring 20 points with another career high eight rebounds, plus two assists and two steals.
Since the start of the new year, Prince and Cambridge are hitting new levels in the freshman maturation process. Prince averages 15.5 points and six rebounds per game so far in 2025, with Cambridge averaging 21.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in five games of the 2025 calendar.
That means Sunday has the chance for an explosive game on the perimeter, the first of many should both stay in the Big Ten for the duration of their careers.
Both freshmen can attack inside the paint or sit back and hit shots from deep. Cambridge has the speed advantage, but Ohio State faces the concern of Prince getting open shots from long range. The shooting guard Prince can make it a long afternoon in Lincoln if Nebraska effectively puts her on an island through the Scarlet and Gray press.
Paint Work
When the Buckeyes beat Maryland Thursday, forward Ajae Petty played seven minutes. In that time, the starting forward scored nine points on 3-of-3 shooting and grabbed one rebound. Head coach Kevin McGuff put Petty on the bench, and oddly enough didn’t bring her back into the game much.
It wasn’t because of foul trouble or injury either. After the game, McGuff assured that Petty was fine but he was letting freshman center Elsa Lemmilä stay on the court, playing 23 minutes for the Buckeyes. Lemmilä had five points, five rebounds and four blocks. What’s also impressive is the 6-foot-6 center didn’t turn the ball over once.
McGuff had the trust in the freshman to keep her in against a stout inside game from the Terrapins instead of the graduate senior Petty who has started every game for Ohio State this season.
Is it a means to get his future starting big more comfort in conference? Was it simply based on matchup, despite Maryland coach Brenda Frese employing three starting forwards? Time will tell but McGuff will need both of them against senior forward Alexis Markowski.
The career Cornhusker Markowski leads the team in points (14.5) and rebounds (8.2), which is nothing new. Markowski has been dominant since joining the program for the 20-21 season and especially against Ohio State. In three games against the Buckeyes, Markowski averages a 15.7-point, 13-rebound, double-double, regularly making life difficult for whoever is matched against her inside.
Photo by Graham Stokes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Petty has the speed to play step-by-step with Markowski, but McGuff leverages Lemmilä’s wingspan to stop inside shots. Lemmilä’s 35 blocks on the season is already higher than any single Buckeye in the past four seasons and is likely to surpass the 40 blocks mark, which hasn’t been hit in the program since the 18-19 season.
Can the duo keep Markowski at bay? This season, Nebraska doesn’t have the reinforcements of Natalie Potts. The Big Ten Freshman of the Year suffered an ACL injury on Nov. 19, taking her out for the remainder of the season. Even so, Markowski alone is enough to cause issues for most teams.
Chance Gray Comeback
An anomaly on the scoresheet Thursday night was shooting guard Chance Gray. In 21 minutes, Gray had one assists, one turnover and two fouls on 0-of-7 shooting, with four of those missed shots coming from deep.
It’s the first time in Gray’s college career that she scored no points in a game. Gray also hasn’t scored less than five points in a game since her 22-23 freshman season.
That makes the Ohio State win more improbable than it already was with the Scarlet and Gray down 15 points in the second quarter. This season, Gray has been a spark for the Buckeyes offense. Since the start of the new year, Gray averaged 15.2 points per game with at least three shots made each game from beyond the arc.
Part of that Thursday performance was the outstanding play of Kennedy Cambridge, who was the spark that helped propel the Buckeyes comeback. Now, against Nebraska, Gray can have her own comeback. The likelihood that Gray has a repeat performance like Thursday is drastically low.
Gray hasn’t scored less than 10 points in consecutive games since the 2023 Pac-12 conference tournament, when Gray was a freshman for the Oregon Ducks.
Now a Buckeye guard, Gray is a coach’s kid and a competitor. Odds are, Gray makes a return against the Cornhuskers, giving the visiting Scarlet and Gray a dynamic the team needs if they hope to stay near the top of the Big Ten.