In the last four season, Ohio State women’s basketball head coach Kevin McGuff has not made a single non-injury substitution in his starting lineup.
“I don’t think that’ll be the case this year,” head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters this week. “I think that for us to be who we’re capable of being, we’re going to have to have and I think we have enough newcomers too. I think people are going to emerge and get better. So I think it’s going to be much more in flux,”
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The last competitive substitution McGuff made was in the 2021-22 season, when he slid now-WNBA professional Jacy Sheldon over to the point guard position. Even then, it started when then-point guard Kateri Poole sustained an injury but that only took the guard out for a couple games. Poole never stepped back into the starting role.
Uncertainty shrouds the 25-26 edition of the Buckeyes, and there are reasons that McGuff anticipates flux within the program. That means on Sunday, at 1 p.m. ET against Coppin State, its unsure what to expect from this edition of Ohio State women’s basketball.
New Names
First, and most obvious, are the newcomers. Ohio State went from a program that leveraged its upperclassmen veterans heavily to a team with only two seniors and one junior. Of the 11-player roster suited up for this season, five have not stepped foot onto the court in an NCAA regular season game.
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Of those freshmen, Bryn Martin and Dasha Biriuk are new to college basketball. The two can shoot, which will help Ohio State fill the need to attack on the perimeter, but all the experience for the Buckeyes sits in the guard room.
McGuff praised Biriuk as someone who “does some things on the offensive end as well as anybody we have now,” but the guard needs more time to learn McGuff’s defense. The longer that takes, the more limited minutes will be on an already short 11-player roster.
Fortunately, there is T’yana Todd, a new name that has three seasons of NCAA experience starting with the Boston College Eagles. The talk surrounding Todd is deep shooting. After all, when you get the commitment of the most efficient three-point shooter in the ACC, it is going to grab headlines.
Todd will give Ohio State more spacing, but that guard will also take up some of that open space and go to the basket. While Todd played for a program that does not exactly garner attention in the NCAA, there is more to the senior’s game that fans will see as she is the likely starting third guard for McGuff’s Buckeyes.
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Injuries
Then there are injuries. Until the games start, there are no regular injury reports. On Tuesday, McGuff shared that the team is going through some knocks. At this point, that does not sound like it will make anyone unavailable for Sunday’s opener, or taking anyone out for longterm, but it does hurt the team’s preparation.
With players in and out of practice, McGuff stated he would not have a starting group selected until Friday. Center Elsa Lemmilä is part of those injury absences. The 6-foot-6 center had not one but two surgeries this season, on her foot and then a second on her meniscus. Lemmilä tore the meniscus in the final game of the season last year. Both are injuries that make sense for a young, tall, center who is still adjusting to the physicality of NCAA basketball.
“This summer has been just a lot of rehabbing,” Lemmilä told reporters. “It’s been kind of hard, and it’s not gone too smooth, so there’s definitely been some bumps, but I’ve had a couple weeks behind me of full practice, so I’m feeling pretty good.”
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Despite a potential slow start to the season for Lemmilä, redshirt freshmen Ella Hobbs and Kylee Kitts are other new players to watch, but these two can play in the paint. The two stand at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-5 respectively and both of them can shoot from beyond the arc.
They can also help Ohio State in their recent rebounding issues. Of the four forwards on the team, three of them stand at at least 6-foot-4. That is something the Buckeyes have not had since Dorka Juhász, Aaliyah Patty and Rebeka Mikulášiková played together during the 20-21 campaign. Back then, it was mostly Juhász and Patty taking the minutes. This time around, all three could share equal responsibility.
Due to Lemmilä’s surgery induced absence this summer, Hobbs, Kitts, and fellow redshirt freshman forward Seini Henry had the luxury of more reps with starters in practice. If Lemmilä does not make the starting five for Sunday’s game against Coppin State, do not be surprised to see Hobbs and Kitts occupy the pair of forward starters McGuff usually incorporates.
At team media, reporters asked Lemmilä about how she felt about playing this weekend, and while the sophomore is ready to go, there are still hurdles to work through.
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“Maybe a little less mentally, but I’ll get there,” said Lemmilä. “We’re starting with non conference games, and I think I just really need to more mentally prepared for Big Ten games.”
Lacking Predictability
Even in previous seasons, McGuff and his team were well versed in stating that the team uses the non-conference schedule to ramp up for the conference games. Even when they were defending league champions or fresh off an Elite Eight run.
That rings true this year more than most. Outside of a trip to Connecticut to face the defending champion UConn Huskies to end the second week of the season, the non-conference schedule is manageable. There are sneaky non-conference matchups like Belmont, who nearly defeated the Buckeyes last season, and recent HBCU powerhouse Norfolk State, but the schedule gives some time to adjust to a new roster and get as healthy as possible before the intensity hits another level when the 18-game Big Ten schedule begins.
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In some seasons, the relentless mid major schedule loses some of the excitement. Fans like seeing a win, but 30-point victories each night start to get boring. That will not be the case this year.
There is less predictability in this Ohio State team.
On Monday, the Buckeyes had a closed door scrimmage, it was the team’s first game against another squad that is not fellow Ohio State players or the guys on the practice squad. Despite the uncertainty, there are positives.
“They played really well in their first game yesterday. But I’m hopeful that we get a chance to see a lot of people play in a couple different rotations,” said McGuff. “I think that’s going to be a big part of our evolution here, especially early on the season.”
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What does that look like in practice? Ohio State’s roster is split between six guards and four forwards. If the forward group is not healthy, as Hobbs returned this season from an ACL tear that took her out the entire 24-25 season, McGuff’s strongest group are his guards.
A four-guard group could work as players continue getting back to game shape in the post, with Jaloni Cambridge, Chance Gray, Todd and Kennedy Cambridge all starters in previous seasons of their NCAA careers. Even if not for an entire game, there are enough different looks for the Buckeyes that will make it hard for defenses to predict.
It does not hurt that nearly all the Buckeyes can shoot from beyond the arc too, including the post players. Teams will not be able to load inside the paint, as long as players are hitting their shots from three-point range.
Coppin State
With all that to consider, how does it impact Sunday’s game against the Coppin State Eagles? So far, the HBCU side out of Baltimore, Maryland has two games under their belt. That gives the Eagles an obvious advantage, but that team also has only one returner and a brand new head coach.
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Darrell Mosley joined Coppin State this season after 15 years coaching at the Division II level and as an assistant coach in Division I.
In the first two games of the season, Mosley visited two of his previous employers when Coppin State started the season against Arizona State and followed that up against Lincoln (PA).
That first game against the Sun Devils ended in a 67-53 defeat for the Eagles, and the loss gave insight into how it might go against the Buckeyes. Arizona State employed a full-court press that Coppin State struggled to play through and the Eagles gave the ball away 33 times. The Sun Devils had 37 points off turnovers, over half of the team’s points.
Offensively, Coppin State showed a team that is still adjusting to basically a brand new team. In the half court, the Eagles passed around the Sun Devils interior defense and often tried to force shots inside the paint. That is not something Coppin State can do against Lemmilä, Kitts and Hobbs.
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The Buckeyes have the advantage in the matchup, but the preseason shows that there are no guarantees with the questions surrounding the program.
No matter how the rest of Ohio State’s preparation goes, the games begin on Sunday. The Scarlet and Gray had an extra week of rest and preparation compared to most of college basketball. In all seasons for that to happen, this year it might be a blessing in disguise.
