Powered by an impressive 2nd quarter of play with defensive stops like this shot rejection on UConn’s KK Arnold by Elsa Lemmilä, the Buckeyes erased a double digit deficit and pulled to within three at the half, 38-35. But a teamwide cold shooting hand and defensive collapse in the final 20 minutes turned the game into a rout for the 4th ranked Huskies. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Connecticut came to Columbus and did what the Huskies do, humbling the Buckeyes in front of a large crowd at the Schottenstein Center
Columbus, OH — So what’s it going to take for Ohio State to be anything like Connecticut in women’s basketball?
That was not a question anyone was asking going into the Buckeyes’ game against the Huskies on Thursday night.
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When one program has 12 national titles and the other has none, obviously much must be done before they could possibly become peers.
Yes, the Huskies once looked up at mighty Tennessee, but they’ve long since left the Lady Vols and everyone else in their dust as Geno Auriemma leads Connecticut for a 42nd season.
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The 87-55 UConn victory was another reminder of the difference between the Buckeyes and the best the sport has to offer.
Not that there were not bright spots for Kevin McGuff’s team.
They showed great gumption in rallying from an early 12-2 hole. Playing in front of 8,842 at the Schottenstein Center — including many rooting for the road team — the Buckeyes got the game into their mode for a while in the second quarter and made it a contest again.
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Jaloni Cambridge (21 points), her sister Kennedy (8 points) and Ava Watson (13 points) formed a troublesome trio for the Huskies in the last four-plus minutes of the second quarter as the Cambridges took turns digging out steals or rebounds and getting the ball to Watson in the open floor for layups and short shots in the paint.
Kennedy Cambridge makes a spectacular defensive play, denying UConn’s Allie Ziebell by cleanly dislodging the ball from under her as Ziebell elevated in the lane.
They needed those because the 3-pointers weren’t falling, but the Buckeyes managed to cobble together enough offense to get to the locker room down just 38-35.
At that point, one could envision an upset similar to the one Michigan pulled last week in Ann Arbor.
Ohio State trailed by three despite shooting just 43.8% from the field and making only 1 of 9 from 3-point range.
The Huskies weren’t much better from a shooting standpoint (45% overall and 4/10 from 3), but hey, it’s not like anyone is going to beat them when they are at their best. UConn being a little off is kind of baked in when dreaming of surprising the college basketball world.
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Then reality set in just after intermission ended.
The third quarter was all Connecticut, specifically Sarah Strong.
Cambridge vs. Strong. Jaloni Cambridge puts up a shot over UConn defender Sarah Strong, but it was Strong and the Huskies who would win the night, schooling the Buckeyes in the second half on the stark difference between a top 20 and a top 5 team.
Ohio State has the reining Big Ten scoring champion in Jaloni Cambridge, but UConn has the 2025-26 National Player of the Year in Strong.
A 6-2 junior with point guard skills who plays small forward, Strong sat for the last 12 minutes of the first half after picking up her second foul.
Then she scored 17 of her 25 points in the third quarter when she was 6 for 8 from the field and made all five of her 3-point attempts. Sometimes she was open, and other times she made shots with a hand in her face. What Ohio State was doing didn’t seem to matter much once the Huskies locked in, a familiar sight when these teams play.
In now nine all-time meetings, Ohio State has one victory — 73-61 in the 2023 Sweet 16 — and only one of the losses is by les than 21.
How do they do it?
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The Huskies are talented, of course, but that’s far from the only factor in their greatness. McGuff kept coming back to one particular word in his postgame interview. It stars with a ‘C’ and ends with a ‘y.’ Coaches whose teams have it are the envy of those who don’t, and none exemplify it better than the Huskies.
That word is consistency.
Ava Watson goes to the line to shoot two after a technical foul, a Flagrant 1, was called on UConn’s Olivia Vukosa after video review. Replay showed Vukosa appearing to wildly throw a fist toward a defender after being fouled on the play.
“One thing I told them: To UConn’s credit, they’re just very consistent,” McGuff said. “You know, they executed. Even if they didn’t make shots and you made a run, they executed and kind of did what they wanted to do for the first 20 minutes and we did not. And we kind of had it going for a half in terms of our competitive spirit and played well enough, but certainly didn’t in the second half. And they had a lot to do with that, give ‘em credit, but that’s the biggest thing. They’re very consistent in what they do, and we’re not, and we’ve got to get significantly more consistent if we want to be who we’re capable of being.”
Before McGuff came to the postgame interview room, Auriemma complimented Ohio State for having “a fun style of play to watch.”
“There’s a lot of really good stuff going on on the offensive end,” he said. “And defensively, they can make you look really silly with their pressure, and I think you have to really be disciplined.”
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The coach of the Huskies also drilled down to how his team survived a down shooting second quarter. While the Buckeyes scraped out a few loose balls and turned them into points, he liked the way his team buckled down to at least minimize the damage before Strong could come to the rescue.
Kennedy Cambridge keeps a close eye on UConn’s Kayleigh Heckel. Heckel was a menace in the the first half, scoring at will when given the opportunity.
“We had enough people step up that we went in at halftime up three,” Auriemma said. “That was huge because it could have been down 10. Who knows? I think they really found themselves a little bit. It didn’t look smooth. It didn’t look poetic, but it was pretty gritty, and that’s all we need from them when it’s your turn. You’re at Connecticut so you’re expected to do it.”
By now, Auriemma is used to being the hunted. He delivered a soliloquy about “becoming the mountain” since leading UConn to its first national title in 1995. He hasn’t forgotten the struggle McGuff is in the middle of, the strife of trying to elevate a program from good to great.
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“How is that? In one sense, it’s people look at you and your team and they go, how are we going to climb that mountain?” Auriemma said. “But they don’t see that on this end, we’re (asking) how do we how do we stay the mountain? And for me personally — for these kids, it comes and goes. They come here, they do it, they leave. For me, it’s been constant, and yeah, believe me: Did I enjoy it at one time? Absolutely. Do I still enjoy it? Uh, I like it, but I’m not sure. I enjoy the leading up to the games and all that. But I think once the tipoff happens, I get lost in the game, and I enjoy that part of it. But the other part of it, it does wear on you, it really does, but, you know, nobody forced this on us. We built it.”
While Auriemma gets to entertain writers after another big win, McGuff had more tangible things to worry about.
After years of winning with small ball — a four-guard lineup that causes chaos and lives and dies via the press — he’s experimenting with a more traditional look early this season.
Elsa Lemmilä, a 6-6 junior, is back at center with 6-4 Kylee Kitts at power forward. Then he’s working in freshman Adriana Diaz and Sydney Mobley off the bench, but there are tradeoffs to playing big and staying big.
The Lady Buckeyes wait patiently as the commonly observed, but unconventional Kevin McGuff brand of timeout plays out. The majority of the break appears to be spent as a coaches convention, after which the team is typically addressed during the waning minute to seconds before gameplay resumes.
“If it works the way we’re hoping it works, we play Kylie and Sydney and (Diaz) with Elsa and hopefully we’re a little bigger, and hopefully we defend around the basket and rebound a little better, but it’s not quite as good a pressing team,” McGuff said. “So that’s one of the things that we’re trying to figure out or trying to just work through — how good we can get at that and how impactful that can be.”
The Buckeyes forced 13 turnover in the first half but only three in the second. They also lost the rebounding battle 39-31, so it’s safe to say the new-look lineup is still a work in progress, but then it’s hard to beat anyone when shooting 5 for 24 from 3-point range, as the Buckeyes did.
So what’s it going to take for Ohio State to be more like UConn?
There is no shortage of other questions to answer first, but maybe getting bigger could be the first step toward becoming the mountain.
An exhausted Jaloni Cambridge lies quietly for a moment after getting a hard foul late in the 2nd half. The inscription on her left arm “His timing, not mine” was strikingly apropos for a night that saw UConn outscore the Buckeyes 49-20 in final 20 minutes to post an 87-55 victory.