Has No. 2 Ohio State improved enough since Michigan loss to secure sole Big Ten title?
In 2024, the No. 2-ranked Ohio State women's basketball team has seen nothing but success. Going a perfect 14-0 since the turn of the new year, the Buckeyes have been riding a high that includes marquee victories over top-10 teams Iowa and Indiana.
With Michigan going to Value City Arena for Ohio State's final home game of the regular season on Wednesday, the Buckeyes will have a chance right the loss from their final game of 2023 and take full ownership of the Big Ten regular season title.
Ohio State was handed its only conference loss, and the third loss of the season, by the Wolverines on Dec. 30. Defeated 69-60 in Ann Arbor, the Buckeyes were two games removed from their loss to UCLA and would eventually hit their lowest ranking of the season, slotted in at No. 20 in the Jan. 1 AP poll.
In that matchup, the Wolverines were able to shut down the Buckeyes' two top scorers, with Jacy Sheldon and Cotie McMahon combining for 12 points, lower than either of their average points per game.
"It's been interesting, we certainly didn't play well there and they played really well," Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff said. "And there'll be ready, but I think we're better. I haven't had a chance to watch them a whole lot ... but they're probably better as well. And so, I think both teams have improved and so it should be entertaining matchup."
On multiple occasions, McGuff has used the time frame near the Michigan loss as a measuring stick to evaluate his team's growth, stating the Buckeyes from December could not have won the games they've picked up in the new year.
McGuff knows there are key elements that have made big impacts in their recent success.
"One, Celeste (Taylor) is playing at a different level. Two, Cotie's playing at a different level," McGuff said. "So, personnel wise I think we just have players playing more than their capability. We're not going to be the team we're capable of being unless they are who they are. I also think we've gotten better in the half-court defensively and kind of put all that together, it's got us at a different level."
'What makes us really dangerous'
It's been a topic of focus since the beginning of the season, because while Ohio State has made a name for itself in the full-court press, McGuff has wanted his team to become well-rounded defensively.
"I think that it allows us to really wear on people that we're pressing and really making the game extremely fast and kind of grueling," McGuff said. "Even when they don't turn it over, we can still stop them in the half-court."
Struggling to contain most of the Wolverines' starting lineup, Ohio State's defense allowed all five Michigan starters to score at least 9 points despite recording 15 turnovers.
Though there have been multiple games in which the Buckeyes have forced 25 or more turnovers. In some of their most recent close matchups, the half-court defense has pushed them to victory. In the Ohio State-Iowa game on Jan. 21, the Hawkeyes recorded 15 turnovers, but Ohio State's half-court defense was able to minimize the impact of the players surrounding Iowa's leading-scorer Caitlin Clark.
"I think it's cool to rely on our press so much, but when we can rely on our half-court defense, I think that's what makes us really dangerous," Sheldon said. "We can still make both better I think, still haven't clicked in a couple areas. But it's definitely nice to be able to go to both those defenses."
The OSU starting five
Along with McMahon's 5 points against Michigan in Ann Arbor, the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year also had her only zero-rebound performance of the season.
Taylor, on the other hand, posted her highest scoring game with the Buckeyes at that time with 16 points against the Wolverines, but it came at a point in the season where she wasn't having those results on a consistent basis. In late December, the transfer was still trying to find her place in the Buckeyes' lineup, specifically on the offensive end.
"We didn't jell the way we wanted to in the beginning of the season, but obviously, that takes growth, we had a lot of new pieces, we were just trying to piece things together," Taylor said. "Learning from those experiences, from those losses. But we learned throughout the season, that what makes a really great team is learning from wins."
McMahon and Taylor have seen their scoring production take a leap since the first Ohio State-Michigan matchup, averaging almost 2 points more than they were after that game.
When the whole starting lineup for the Buckeyes is clicking, that is when they have their best results.
"If you look at our losses, we've had a couple people scoring and that's sort of it," McGuff said earlier this season. "And so, we're way better when the ball moves and we spread the scoring around."
In every one of the Buckeyes' matchups since Michigan, at least three of their starters have scored in double-digits, with all five reaching that mark on four occasions. In comparison, only Taylor and Taylor Thierry from the starting lineup scored over 10 points against the Wolverines.
'It means a lot'
The stakes are already high for Ohio State entering its final home game of the regular season. With a win, the Buckeyes can secure sole possession of the Big Ten regular season title before heading to Iowa on March 3 for the season finale. It would mark OSU's first solo regular season title since 2010.
Standing in the way is not only a team that has the record advantage over Ohio State, but is also the program's biggest rival.
"I've been a part of some really cool rivalries, honestly, in my years of college basketball, but this one is definitely different," Taylor said. "It means a lot, it means a lot more especially to the program, to the school, to university. And so, just I think understanding those rivalries is important for us athletes, because, you just know how bad you want it as a school and as a program."
As someone who grew up in the Cleveland area, went to high school in Dublin and refers to the Buckeyes' upcoming opponents exclusively as "the team up north," Sheldon has one of the best understandings of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry on the team.
Sheldon is confident with where her team is and feels the Buckeyes have even more to show as they head into the most crucial time of the basketball season.
"I don't want to take away from what we're doing," Sheldon said. "I think we're really getting better and our chemistry's growing, but I still think we haven't played a full 40 minutes of our best basketball yet. And that's OK. I think that's a good thing at this point in the season and it's really exciting."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State faces Michigan with outright Big Ten title on the line
