The issues that haunted the Buckeyes against the Trojans, and a player who can bring them out of it.
Traveling to Los Angeles, California to play two top teams in the nation is no easy task, which Ohio State women’s basketball learned firsthand last week. The Buckeyes returned home to Columbus following two games where the Scarlet and Gray didn’t only fall, but fall hard.
After double-digit defeats to the No. 1 UCLA Bruins and No. 7 USC Trojans, the Buckeyes play four of their last six games regular season games at home, but it can’t be the same side returning home. These two defeats showed that there is a sizable gap between the two top teams in the Big Ten and Ohio State.
Against the Bruins on Wednesday, things went ok for Ohio State for three of four quarters. Defensively, UCLA had trouble scoring on the Buckeyes but offensively the Scarlet and Gray struggled. Shots were there for the taking but didn’t fall with any sort of regularity.
Saturday night was a different story with USC’s defense. The Trojans played strong man coverage and with the home side’s size and defensive pressure, the Buckeyes didn’t have nearly the same number of open looks as they did further north against the Bruins.
Ohio State went into the game hoping to be multidimensional on offense. Teams expect the Buckeyes to attack the basket with forward Cotie McMahon and guard Jaloni Cambridge, but instead, it was forward Ajae Petty starting the game strong under the basket. Petty received passes and took on USC defenders one-on-one, scoring eight first-half points.
“When we played Wednesday night, we took a lot of jump shots and a lot of drives we didn’t get a lot of post-ups,” said head coach Kevin McGuff. “It’s hard because Betts is so big and protects the rim and so we just wanted to challenge them around the basket a little bit just to see you know if we could get some some easy shots just because we really hadn’t gotten a lot here recently.”
The inside game didn’t open up much on the outside. USC didn’t send another player to help defend Petty, and Ohio State shot 1-of-5 from beyond the arc in the first half. Not only was the offense not there for the second game in a row, but the Buckeyes were giving away possessions to the Trojans.
In terms of turnovers, Ohio State forced 23 for the second game in a row but didn’t convert them consistently into points. What especially hurt was a lack of activity on the boards.
USC outrebounded the Buckeyes 62-30, resulting in 18 second-chance points for the Trojans compared to none for Ohio State. The Trojans had three starters earn double-doubles, and the other two starters each had eight a piece. Look at the rebounds for the Buckeyes only two players even reached five rebounds and they were Cambridge, who stands at 5-foot-7, and guard/forward hybrid Taylor Thierry.
“We got our ass kicked on boards,” said McGuff. “if we’re not going to compete and fight better than that we’re not going to be a team like USC.”
When a shot clanged off the backboard or the rim, there were normally two to three Trojans ready to go for the ball. Ohio State failed to crash the boards as a group or try to make it difficult for the home side to get into position. Instead, they left Petty. and fellow bigs Elsa Lemmilä and Eboni Walker on their own to fend for themselves.
Offensively, McGuff’s side mostly abandoned what made them effective in the first place. Outside of not converting turnovers to points, the half-court offense lacked any sort of bite. When things stopped working, plays broke down.
“When things didn’t go right we kind of just started playing ‘me ball’ and a little bit of one-on-one and just that’s just not what we do,” said McMahon. “Our system is very move-the-ball from side to side and then get what’s easy, get what’s cut like what comes to us.”
That wasn’t happening, leading to an even worse shooting performance than Wednesday, with the Buckeyes matching the season-low 29.4% shooting they sunk to against UCLA.
Overall, Ohio State struggled for 40 minutes on their way to an 84-63 defeat to a team ranked just one spot above them nationally. The idea that in every loss there’s a lesson means there’s a lot of studying to be done for Ohio State before they get back onto the court Thursday, against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
There was a bright spot on the team, and that was Thierry’s play. The senior led the team with 14 points, 5 rebounds and 5 steals. Also, defensively, Thierry was the catalyst behind a tough night for USC guard JuJu Watkins.
In three quarters, Thierry held Watkins to 10 points on 2-of-13 shooting from the floor, with six of those points coming from the free-throw line. Thierry was aggressive, resulting in some fouls, but the usual pearl-clutching that comes with stars like Watkins getting fouled narrative doesn’t work considering Thierry was fouled more times than the superstar sophomore. Including a strong hack from Watkins from behind on a fast break.
Regardless, Thierry showed what happens when the team sticks to what they know and what is expected of them on the court.
“I mean her actions just speak louder than words,” said McMahon. “I mean she’s been doing this like I said for four years, so her just doing what she’s doing is just very impactful because I mean people just if they don’t want to, they should want to follow in TT’s footsteps because I’m telling you she almost does everything right. So, I feel like her just continuing doing what she’s doing and then me continuing to push my teammates into just trusting the process I feel like we’ll go along with it.”
Should the team follow McMahon’s advice, there are six games ahead that the Buckeyes can win. If Ohio State can do that, it will ensure that the program earns a top-four spot in the Big Ten Tournament, meaning a bye into the quarterfinals.
Sitting below McGuff’s side in the standings are three teams in their next six who are within 1.5 games of Ohio State’s current third-place position. Including the Michigan State Spartans and Maryland Terrapins that sit just below the Buckeyes in the standings.