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Whether she meant to or not, Niele Ivey provided the perfect jumping off point for a column about Ohio State women’s basketball Monday night.
With an 83-73 win over the Buckeyes in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Fighting Irish advanced to the Sweet 16 for the 22nd time — including when Ivey was a player and now with her as head coach.
How have they done that?
“Yeah, I mean it's a standard that we have at Notre Dame,” she said. “It’s a standard that I've been a part of as a player since '96. And no matter what, no matter our seed, no matter our road, we're going to come in with that mindset.
“I've been in the NCAA Tournament as a player, so I know we have the blueprint of that, but it's that standard, that standard of excellence that we're always trying to get back to.”
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More relevant to readers of this newsletter, of course, would be the fact the Buckeyes lost in the round of 32 for the third season in a row — all at home.
There’s no way to spin that other than negatively.
Upsets happen in college basketball, but you’re still supposed to win more than you lose as the higher seed — especially on your home floor.
If Ohio State has a standard, well, it would have to be disappointment at this point in the tournament.
A proud program that committed early to being good at women’s basketball and capitalized when the NCAA officially began sponsoring a women’s basketball tournament in 1982, the Buckeyes have only 13 Sweet 16 appearances — and five of those came in that first decade
Jim Foster won six Big Ten championships from 2004-13, but he only made the second weekend of the Big Dance three times.
That was a specific reason Gene Smith cited when firing him and bringing on Kevin McGuff, who has certainly had some success of his own.
McGuff has made four Sweet 16s and engineered the program’s first Elite Eight since the 1993 team was national runner-up.
But that feels like a long time ago now — all the way back in 2023 — so have the Buckeyes plateaued? Are they moving backwards? Is it time to try a new voice?
All fair questions at this point, though I would think McGuff will get a chance to keep this young team together and try to supplement it — especially after surviving an arrest for DUI last spring.
(As far as I am aware, he has one more year on his contract thanks to triggering a provision that led to an automatic extra season when they won the Big Ten regular season title in 2024.)
Ohio State beat teams by overwhelming them with speed and quickness on the perimeter, but they were vulnerable to teams with strong inside games because of a lack of size. That is not Notre Dame. In fact, the Fighting Irish looked a lot like the Buckeyes on paper — except efficiency numbers said Ohio State was just a bit better overall.
Games are still played on the court, though, and that was bad news for Ohio State — especially its home court apparently.
Instead of Ohio State putting the Irish in a blender like they have done so many teams, Notre Dame’s tenacious defense kept them on their heels both in terms of turning them over and stopping them from getting the open looks at 3 they thrive on when they are really rolling.
Maybe the key difference was in the name
The Irish certainly showed more fight, recovering from an early 11-0 deficit to dominate the second quarter 23-13.
They also withstood a 10-0 Ohio State run in the third quarter before pulling away in the fourth (prior to the Buckeyes scoring the last eight points in the final minute when the game was already decided).
Sometimes we attach narratives based on a few random bounces, but it was hard to ignore the difference in want-to with these two teams Monday. Notre Dame just took it to Ohio State over and over again.
“When they’re getting layups off live ball turnovers, we just couldn’t overcome it. And you got to give them credit. I thought their defense was really good and it created those turnovers. But we were going to have to play a much cleaner game than we played and not turn the ball over if we were going to win the game. And we didn't do it.”
The toughness talk has dogged Ohio State for a long time.
I remember Central Michigan’s coach saying her team’s toughness was the difference in a 95-78 win over the Buckeyes way back in 2018 when the Chippewas ended the career of OSU all-time leading scorer Kelsey Mitchell at St. John Arena.
The game has changed a lot since then, and that Ohio State team wasn’t as talented as this one, but the Buckeyes are still much more reliant on speed than power, on finesse than force.
(I’m not calling out any individual player, though I will say two who are NOT lacking toughness are the Cambridge sisters. Jaloni and Kennedy both took some hits and kept coming back for more. Kennedy was even knocked out of the game for a while after a collision under the Ohio State basket, but she was able to return.)
And this doesn’t seem to be only a problem with McGuff’s program. Foster’s teams absorbed similar beatings in the postseason, though they were often dinged for lacking athleticism it wasn’t just that. They rarely responded to being bullied by teams that played with more confidence at the end of the season.
The good news is almost everyone is due back for Ohio State
No. 2 scorer Chance Gray is the only senior who played a significant role.
Jaloni Cambridge scored 41 points in the loss, and she’s just a sophomore. Her sister has another year of eligibility if she wants to use it, too.
Center Elsa Lemmila and power forward Kylee Kitts both just finished their second seasons of college basketball, as did shooting guard Ava Watson so there is a great nucleus to build around.
Having covered her when she was a senior at Springboro, I’m also a big fan of freshman Bryn Martin, who is 6-2 and has a nice all-around game.
The bad news is this is 2026
That means everyone is a free agent at the end of every season.
Three-year starter Cotie McMahon jumped ship after last season, so anything is possible these days.
Of course McGuff is well aware he can’t just pencil in all the underclassmen to return, but then again he also has a better opportunity to add players who can help immediately, too.
“It is what it is in this day and age of course. Obviously every kid we have in the program is a great kid. We have high-character kids, but to your point, we have a lot of good, young, talented players as well. I think if we can keep this group, the core of this group together and keep growing and getting better we could really end up in some great places. But it's just not as easy as just saying that. I think everybody likes being here and all that, but there's other factors in this day and age and we'll start to obviously dive into those as soon as possible.”
And then once the roster is set, we’ll only have to wait another 360-some days to see if they can change the narrative.
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