Sloppy Turnovers Take Buckeyes Out Of Tourney

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State women’s basketball team looked like it belonged with the top teams in the sport when it was not turning the ball over. Unfortunately, there were not many times where that wasn’t an issue as the Buckeyes committed 23 turnovers, allowing the Tennessee to score 37 points off the miscues, all part of an 82-67 loss to end the season.

Freshman guard Jaloni Cambridge giveth and taketh away. The phenom recorded 19 points on the positive side of things but also committed eight turnovers on the bad side of things.

Cotie McMahon had 17 points for the Buckeyes, capping off the double-digit scorers.

On the other side, the Vols had four players score in double-digits, including 19 points for Talaysia Cooper off the bench.

The Buckeyes would open an 11-point lead in the first half, but no lead was safe when the Buckeyes didn’t know where the ball was going. A lot of credit must go to the Vols, who pressed the Buckeyes full court for large parts of the came as head coach Kim Caldwell would substitute four or five players into the game every two or three minutes.

“Credit to them for them locking on their game plan and pressuring us,” Ohio State guard Taylor Thierry said after the game. “But we had to do a better job taking care of the ball and not having so many turnovers.”

Ohio State’s 11-point lead would turn into a five-point deficit in less than four minutes to wrap up the first half. Ohio State would then watch the Vols go on a 14-0 run to start out the second half of the game, falling by as many 17 points in the third quarter.

“I thought we were, in the right spots, but really not making good decisions when we had to go at a little bit higher rate of speed,” Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff said after the game. This marks the second straight season that Ohio State has not escaped the first weekend, last season falling to Duke at home in the round of 32.

Tennessee knew at halftime that the Buckeyes were going to be good for one more run and after all the problems of being down by five at the break and down by as many as 17 points, a perennial top 20 type of team was not going to fold.

“We knew that they were going to go on a run,” Tennessee guard Jewel Spear said after the game. “They’re a really good team. We went on our run, they went on their run, but we just stuck together.”

McGuff’s Buckeyes would take a 57-56 lead after Cotie McMahon hit one of two free throws but from that point on, the Buckeyes were outscored 26-11 as Ohio State was only ab le to put up eight points in the entire 4^th quarter.

Sometimes the emotion of climbing out of a deep deficit hole can leave a team with nothing after getting back into the game.

“Certainly, it was a high-paced game with, we expended a lot of energy throughout the game,” McGuff said “But I think as much as anything, we were mentally tired. I thought physically we were fine, but mentally we were a little worn out and a little bit frustrated. I just think like the mental fatigue when we turned it over a couple times, we didn’t handle that real well mentally as much as anything.”

The Buckeyes played on Friday night, defeating Montana State in the first round of the tournament.

But with Elsa Lemmilä going down to injury in the first half and being limited to just seven minutes of game action and playing with a shorter bench than the Vols, it meant that McMahon was going to have to play for 35 minutes, and Taylor Thierry would see just a tick over 38 minutes.

A significant part of this team will be back in 2025-26, but this current roster will not play again and that is another unfortunate turnover for Ohio State fans as the cruelty of the season comes to a sudden end for more than 60 teams in the tournament.