The nonconference schedule for No. 19 Ohio State women’s basketball is mostly over, and in a big way. Sunday is the first of 17 Big Ten conference games, and it starts against the team voted to finish first in the conference in preseason voting — the No. 4 UCLA Bruins.
UCLA is playing like a favorite, too. The Bruins bring size and shooting to the Schottenstein Center for the afternoon matchup that will show the Buckeyes where they sit, competition-wise, in the power conference over the remaining two months of the regular season.
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It is a matchup of youth versus experience and the construction of a new team versus the weight of expectations. Where does Ohio State have chances to compete, how to watch, and more.
“Tall Task”
After Ohio State’s Monday afternoon matchup against the Western Michigan Broncos, reporters asked head coach Kevin McGuff about the Sunday Big Ten matchup. McGuff said his program has “a tall task ahead of us, no pun intended.”
For the past two seasons, the focus of the Bruins sat firmly on the 6’7” shoulders of center Lauren Betts. Now, in Betts’ final season of eligibility, coming off a career junior season in Los Angeles, there is still the attention, but Betts is by no means alone on head coach Cori Close’s roster.
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The UCLA Bruins are a complete offensive powerhouse in the Big Ten.
Entering Sunday’s matchup with the Buckeyes, UCLA boasts five players who average at least 10 points per game and two more at 9.4 and 9.5 points. In 12 games, five different Bruins led UCLA to victory, and only once did the same player do it in consecutive games.
UCLA made the 2025 Final Four and lost handily against the eventual championship-winning UConn Huskies, and so far this season, the Bruins do not look like a team destined to the same fate. Sunday is the fifth game of the season for UCLA against a ranked team, and the lone defeat this year came the day before Thanksgiving when the then No. 4 Texas Longhorns defeated the Bruins.
Since then, the Bruins have been on a five-game winning streak with an average margin of victory of 43.5 points, which included a 30-point win over the Duke Blue Devils, a 22-point victory against the then No. 14 Tennessee Volunteers, and a 21-point win to start Big Ten play against the Oregon Ducks.
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At this point, it is clear that UCLA is good.
Coach Close’s Bruins are a complete package because a group of playmakers and scorers surrounds Betts. This season, the center’s scoring is down five points per game, but Betts’ 3.1 assists per game is the highest in her career and fourth highest on UCLA.
“She’s [Betts] so good, and she’s so elite at scoring around the basket, obviously, but she’s also gotten good at passing out of double teams,” head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters Saturday. “We’ve tried a couple different strategies, and we’ll try a couple different things against them tomorrow to kind of maybe see what sticks.”
McGuff is not going to give away the farm on specifics, but which players will be key to that strategy are clear. For the execution, Ohio State has options.
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Forward Kylee Kitts and center Elsa Lemmilä are tasked with the matchup against the talented senior center. There are two simple, in theory, options for playing the big — double-team or stop the ball from getting to Betts in the first place.
Kitts is well-suited for the latter, as long as the redshirt freshman finds the right spots on the court. This strategy worked in previous games against past bigs in the conference, but Betts has not had too many troubles against Ohio State in three career games against the Buckeyes. In two previous regular-season matchups, Betts averaged 18 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 4 blocks against Ohio State. The third, a postseason game in the 2025 Big Ten Tournament, is an outlier because the center only needed to play 24 minutes in a 75-46 rout of the Buckeyes in the semifinal.
At 6’6”, Lemmilä is the closest like-for-like, size-wise, to Betts on the roster and has two previous games against the Bruin from last season. However, the experience tips the scales heavily in Betts’ favor. That is why the duo of Kitts and Lemmilä on the court at the same time is the likeliest strategy.
“We don’t want them to overthink it,” McGuff said. “We want them to play their game. We want them to be who they are. Try to be disciplined in executing the game plan. And you know, Betts is going to score. She’s going to have some great passes. She’s too good. We’re not going to shut her out, but we want to make her work for everything.”
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Most teams try the double-team against Betts, but that will expose a weakness this season with the Buckeyes. A flaw that the Bruins are more than equipped to exploit. So far this season, Ohio State has struggled against open three-point shooting.
“Typically, our three-point shooting percentage defense has been one of the better in the country, and this year it hasn’t been as good,” McGuff said. “It’s a two-fold thing. Some of it is the half-court, but we’ve also been a little bit deficient getting matched up at the back end of the press, and we’ve given up too many threes in that as well. So, that’s something that we’ve kind of focused on here of late.”
Ohio State is 16th in the 18-team Big Ten conference with a 31.1% opponent three-point shooting percentage, and UCLA is fourth from beyond the arc at 37.2%.
The Bruins have three starters who shoot at least 30% from three-point range in guard Kiki Rice at 34.5%, transfer guard Gianna Kneepkens at 45.6% and the nation’s leading deep shooter, forward Gabriela Jaquez, who shoots 54.2%. Those are not high because of a lack of shooting either. UCLA takes 23.1 attempts per game, good for fifth in the Big Ten.
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So, for the Buckeyes to compete, pace and positioning will be key. Ohio State did that from the second quarter on against the Western Michigan Broncos, but the 3-7 MAC side is not the No. 4 team in the nation.
Then there is freshman forward Sienna Betts, the younger sister of Lauren Betts, who has started the season slowly due to injury, but scored 14 points in the Bruins’ last game before Christmas.
“It gives them another really skilled big body who knows how to play in their system,” McGuff said. “Last year, if you could wear on Lauren a little bit, or get the game going up and down, you might get into their bench a little deeper, and it may have a positive effect. But now, when they put Sienna in, not saying they don’t miss anything with Lauren out, but they don’t miss a whole lot by putting her in.”
Projected Lineups
Ohio State
G: Jaloni Cambridge
G: Chance Gray
G: Kennedy Cambridge
G: T’Yana Todd
F: Kylee Kitts
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Lineup Notes
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Guard Kennedy Cambridge has 4.4 steals per game, which leads the Big Ten and is third overall in the nation.
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Ohio State’s seven turnovers against Western Michigan are the lowest for the Buckeyes this season.
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Guard Jaloni Cambridge is the only player on the Ohio State roster to score double figures in every game through the first 12 games of the 25-26 campaign.
UCLA
G: Kiki Rice
G: Gianna Kneepkens
G: Charlisse Leger-Walker
F: Gabriela Jaquez
C: Lauren Betts
Lineup Notes
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In the Bruins’ final nonconference game of the season, against Long Beach State, six different UCLA players scored in double figures.
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Team USA basketball called center Lauren Betts up to the senior team camp from Dec. 12-14 this year, the only active college player to make the roster. USC Trojans guard JuJu Watkins also joined but could not compete due to injury.
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Guard Charlisse Leger-Walker missed last season due to an ACL tear. This season, Leger-Walker leads the team with 80 assists, good for 6.7 assists per game — the third highest in the Big Ten.
Prediction
Sunday’s game has the makings of a start like Ohio State had against the UConn Huskies. The Buckeyes excelled on offense and were nearly shot-for-shot with the Huskies. Between quarters, UConn adjusted and Ohio State relaxed, which turned into a lopsided Scarlet and Gray defeat.
Ohio State will hang with the top-5 Bruins longer than it did against the Huskies, but it will not be easy for the young interior game of the Buckeyes to sustain the UCLA depth for four quarters. UCLA will have a strong third quarter to pull away from Ohio State.
LGHL Score Prediction: 78-64 UCLA Bruins
How to Watch
See what streaming experts have to say about how to best watch Sunday’s game and more in Land-Grant’s How to Watch.
