No. 8 Ohio State women’s basketball can’t handle No. 7 USC Trojans, lose 84-63
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The Buckeyes head back to Columbus with two losses in Los Angeles.
The No. 8
Ohio State women’s basketball team (20-3, 9-3) finished their West Coast road trip Saturday night against the No. 7 USC Trojans (21-2, 11-1). Despite holding USC guard JuJu Watkins to under her conference-leading 24.2 points per game, Ohio State couldn’t find consistent offense and lost 84-61.
Like the Buckeyes did on Wednesday against the No. 1 UCLA Bruins, Ohio State got off to a quick start from the jump. Saturday night it came defensively, when the visitors forced five turnovers while USC shot 0-of-7 from the floor. Regardless, offensively it didn’t mean Ohio State built up a big lead.
Ohio State had a three-point lead thanks to forward Ajae Petty. After scoring no points against the Bruins, Petty scored the team with four points, all inside the paint. The reason was that the Buckeyes couldn’t find many opportunities with USC’s man coverage locking down OSU’s shooters.
Point guard Jaloni Cambridge and forward Cotie McMahon were kept out of the paint too by the towering size of the Trojans starting four players at least six feet tall. USC outrebounded the Buckeyes 17-9, with two blocks, in the first quarter.
McMahon also ran into foul trouble, picking up two in the first four minutes, requiring the Buckeyes vocal leader to sit on the bench for the remainder of the quarter.
USC began hitting shots and went into the second quarter up a point, thanks to two three-point shots, but none by guard JuJu Watkins. In the first 15 minutes, Ohio State held Watkins to two points, both from the free-throw line. The sophomores' seven shots from the field were all missed, with Buckeye guard/forward Taylor Thierry on Watkins, which caused issues for the star from Los Angeles.
By the media timeout in the second quarter, the Buckeyes were down five points. They quickly went to three, with Petty scoring her eighth point of the game. Then, the wheels began to fall off a bit, and USC went on a run, scoring 11 of the last 17 points of the quarter.
During the run, Petty, the lone player consistently producing on offense, picked up two quick fouls. The second occurred when the Trojans were dribbling up the court, a situation that did not require a foul from the graduate senior. It sent Petty to the bench with three fouls before halftime.
Ohio State entered the locker room down 34-26, needing to find some way around the USC defense to compete with the home side.
Out of the locker room, it looked like head coach Kevin McGuff saw how the Trojans were getting foul calls (10-4) and wanted some of his own. The Buckeyes entered the game and went right at the paint.
McMahon went to the basket twice, one time landing hard on her face and needing to leave the game for a short period of time. Then Cambridge and Thierry followed. The fouls started building against the home side, with forward Kiki Iriafen picking up three quick fouls in the first three minutes of the third quarter.
That sent the Trojans leading scorer of the game (18 points) to the bench.
Even with Iriafen out, the Trojans came out of a quick timeout by head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and went on a five-point run that gave the home side a 13-point lead. Just 52 seconds later, coach McGuff called one of his own to try and stop the game from getting too away from his side.
Out of the timeout, the Buckeyes went small, forced turnovers, and kept going to the basket. Ohio State cut the deficit back to single digits but USC wasn’t easily overcome. With 2:02 remaining in the third, Watkins hit her first shot from the floor, after missing her first 11 attempts.
It started a seven-point run for the Trojans, which increased their lead to a game-high 14 points. That lead held through the end of the third quarter, giving Ohio State the toughest climb of the season to date, a peak the Buckeyes could not reach.
USC extended the lead to 17 points and while the visitors kept pushing, Ohio State couldn’t find enough consistent shooting or stops on defense to make the game close. In the process of the comeback, Thierry also fouled out of the game, making that battle even more difficult.
The Trojans continued to dominate, pushing the lead up to 20 points, taking away any sort of positive for the Buckeyes’s trip west. USC out rebounded the Buckeyes 60-29 and blocked 10 shots, including blocks all the way up to the final moments of the fourth quarter.
Thierry scored in the loss with 14 points, 5 steals, and 5 rebounds, while four of five starters for Ohio State scored at least 10 points.
For the Trojans, three players had double-doubles against the Buckeyes. Iriafen led all scorers with 24 points and 13 rebounds, with Watkins scoring 17 points with 10 rebounds, and six of those points came from the free throw line.
What’s Next
The Buckeyes head back to Ohio, with four of the remaining six games of the regular season played in Columbus. It begins on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET when the
Minnesota Golden Gophers travel to the Schottenstein Center for the first time since Feb. 8, 2023.
Ohio State has a 13-game winning streak against the Golden Gophers, a program that made it into the AP Top 25 on January 13 for the first time this season after starting 16-1. Since then, Minnesota has lost five of the last seven games, including losses to the then-ranked
Michigan Wolverines, UCLA Bruins, USC Trojans, and unranked
Iowa Hawkeyes.
Minnesota guard Mara Braun returned after a foot injury took her out after 22 games last season, but it only lasted five games. Braun hasn’t played since Nov. 17. Instead, guard Amaya Battle and forward Grace Gracholski lead the Golden Gophers with each scoring 11.6 points per game.
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