The Buckeyes have new weapons aplenty, but will they have enough power to cook against two West Coast powerhouses?
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Burning Question: Does Big Ten Expansion end conference title dreams for OSU women’s basketball?
The Buckeyes have new weapons aplenty, but will they have enough power to cook against two West Coast powerhouses?
For a moment there, things looked pretty bleak for Ohio State women’s basketball.
Hot on the heels of two consecutive successful seasons, which included a Big Ten regular season title and a Sweet 16 appearance in 2021-2022, followed by an Elite Eight appearance in 2022-2023, this year’s regular season brought more of the same success fans had become accustomed to.
With a 26-6 overall record (16-2 in the Big Ten), the Buckeyes once again secured the Big Ten regular season title. And then they ran out of steam. In a shocking loss, they fell to Maryland in their first game of the Big Ten Tournament before being upset at home by No. 7 Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Then came the complete roster restock.
Starters Jacy Sheldon (G), Celeste Taylor (G), and Rebeka Mikulasikova (F) finished their collegiate careers, leaving behind enormous shoes to fill. Sheldon, for example, started for most of the last five seasons, save for some injuries, and after leading the Buckeyes this season with 17.8 points and 3.8 assists per game, she was drafted by the Dallas Wings as the No. 4 overall WNBA Draft pick. Taylor averaged 10.1 points and 2.5 steals per game, and went to the Indiana Fever as the 15th overall pick, while Mikulasikova put up 9.4 points per game for her part.
Still, it was the unexpected losses that stung the most, when three backup guards entered the transfer portal. Rikki Harris and Emma Shumate (who each had the potential to help fill the gaps left by Sheldon and Taylor), plus Diana Collins hit the road, leaving head coach Kevin McGuff to pick up the pieces.
While he still had two key returners in junior forward Cotie McMahon and senior guard Taylor Thierry, he needed to bring in new faces to the mix.
He wasted no time, adding two top 25-rated transfers from the portal (forward Ajae Perry from Kentucky and guard Chance Gray from Oregon) and five incoming freshmen.
The incoming recruits include the No. 2 overall recruit in guard Jaloni Cambridge (younger sister of returning Buckeye guard Kennedy Cambridge), along with guard Ava Watson and center Ella Hobbs, both national top 100 players.
In an offseason where the mass exodus of experienced talent could have left fans with questions, McGuff quickly found answers.
But the landscape is changing, and a major conference realignment triggered by football deals has downstream implications for Big Ten Women’s Basketball. Even without the roster upheaval, the Buckeyes had their work cut out for them. The Big Ten Conference was already full of heavy hitters, and two more are about to pose a real challenge to Ohio State’s title hopes: USC and UCLA.
UCLA made it to the Sweet 16 last season after finishing the year as Pac-12 semifinalists. Now, they’re projected as high as No. 5 in (perhaps too early) preseason predictions, including that of ESPN analyst Charlie Creme.
Where the Buckeyes had to scramble to fill roster holes, the Bruins have been sitting pretty—six of their top eight scorers are back for the 2024-2025 season.
And then there’s USC, hot on the heels of a successful run that ended with an Elite Eight appearance. The Trojans join the Big Ten as last year’s reigning Pac-12 Champions, and Creme puts them at No. 2 in his predictions. No doubt, that’s in large part because of sophomore standout JuJu Watkins, whose name will likely be on everyone’s lips yet again. Watkins spent her freshman year smashing records (including, it’s worth noting, Caitlin Clark’s record as the highest-scoring freshman), for which she was named Freshman of the Year and earned All-America First Team honors.
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