The 2025 Big Ten women’s basketball tournament was defined by two of its newcomers in UCLA and USC, two programs that migrated over from the West Coast’s rebuilding Pac-12 conference prior to the 2024-2025 season.
The two newbies gutted it out with UCLA defeating USC 72-67 with standout performances from the players the teams are built around — senior Lauren Betts and now-rehabbing junior JuJu Watkins.
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But before the two California teams faced off in the conference championship game over ten months ago, both teams had to get past Ohio State and Michigan, teams trying to develop identities around their dynamic freshmen.
With Watkins out for the season recovering from a torn ACL that she sustained during the 2025 NCAA Tournament, there is an opportunity for one of the conference’s original teams to challenge UCLA, a team that boasts five seniors in their starting lineup.
Kim Barnes Arico
Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico reflects on bittersweet return to New Jersey without her dad
Coming home to New Jersey was bittersweet for Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico.
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Something to prove in 2025–26
Both the Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State Buckeyes came into the 2025-2026 season with something to prove. Both programs failed to make it to the Sweet 16 in last year’s NCAA tournament.
Ohio State fell to a much more cohesive and veteran Tennessee team that had bought into first year head coach Kim Caldwell’s highly-athletic and aggressive style of play. Michigan got blown out of the water by a Notre Dame roster that boasted soon-to-be WNBA lottery pick Sonia Citron, junior Hannah Hidalgo, and graduate transfer – and potential WNBA lottery pick – Olivia Miles.
“It was really hard for us, it was a tough matchup,” Michigan star sharpshooter Syla Swords told SLAM Magazine about that loss. “It kind of just really exposed us as freshmen and like, OK, this is really what it’s like in NCAA basketball.”
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But now almost a year following coming up short in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments, and with both teams ranked in the AP Top 25, the programs have something to prove and what’s fueling both teams this season has been the ascent of their sophomore class – a group of talented players with clear WNBA potential.
For No. 7-ranked Michigan it starts with their two-way playing duo on the wing in sophomores Swords and Olivia Olson. Swords, known mostly for her sharpshooting and scoring off the dribble, has emerged as a competent defender alongside Olson who typically takes on the opponent’s toughest assignment. Olson is incredibly switchable defensively at 6’1″ and can score at all three levels.
Alongside the two top options for the Wolverines, Michigan’s point guard Mila Holloway is responsible for pushing the pace in transition as Michigan functions best when playing out of its defense.
Ohio State’s new backcourt–frontcourt duo
While Michigan has been building with that core of sophomores, No. 12-ranked Ohio State is just beginning to realize that they have a young duo of their own. The Buckeyes were expected to be in a rebuild after losing big wing Cottie McMahon to the transfer portal and guard/forward Taylor Thierry to the WNBA.
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There was a glaring opportunity for head coach Kevin McGuff to build around talented combo guard and now sophomore Jaloni Cambridge. The sophomore has the speed and shot creation of former Ohio State alumna and Indiana Fever star Kelsey Mitchell, with an added defensive edge and a willingness to pass.
“I think that if you look at today, [Cambridge] had eight assists,” McGuff said after Ohio State’s 71-69 win over TCU on Monday. “We call it a play that really [Cambridge] was the first option. She didn’t get a good shot, and she found [senior] Chance [Gray] because she didn’t get a good shot, and it shows you kind of who she is in that she’s not going to take a bad shot just because the ball is in her hands.”
While the Buckeyes go as Cambridge goes, her pick-and-roll partner of not just the future, but the present is developing right in front of the Buckeyes’ eyes. While Elsa Lemmilä’s cumulative numbers don’t pop off the page right now, in her last eight games she’s averaged 12.5 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists.
Lemmilä is a 6-foot-6 athletic center from Finland who runs hard in transition, anticipates well in the pick-and-roll, can put the ball on the floor, facilitate and can shoot the three. She values defending at a high level and deploys her long arms to protect the rim. For Lemmilä’, her greatest strength is her versatility and her commitment to winning over personal numbers. She doesn’t have to score 30 points in a game but rather would want to make sure she’s getting a double-double in points and rebounds in addition to some assists and blocks.
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“I would say what I want to be is more of just like an all around player,” Lemmilä told NBC Sports on Monday. “I want to be able to score, I want to be able to defend. I want to be able to be able to pass to my teammates, set good screens, just be really an all around player. And I think I can be that. There’s still a little bit more for me to do to be able to get there, but I’m on the way.”
While Michigan’s Swords and Ohio State’s Cambridge have clearly been thinking about the pros following their participation in Los Angeles Sparks star Kelsey Plum’s Dawg class—a camp that allows Plum to mentor college guards before they land in the WNBA—Lemmilä is a lot less certain about what her future holds.
The sophomore is studying environmental engineering and noted that while she has interest in playing at the next level, she’s very open to working following graduation. While Lemmilä might not fully realize it now, she’s got a skillset that WNBA evaluators value. Her versatility, which Swords and Olson of Michigan also have, bodes well for the young center.
Comebacks are part of the growing pains
On Monday while playing in the second annual Coretta Scott King Classic at the Prudential Center in Newark, both teams showed their penchant for comebacks and how they went about it in similar ways. They turned their opponents over and got easy scoring opportunities in transition. While Ohio State completed the comeback over TCU, Michigan did not, falling short 72-69 of Vanderbilt.
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Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico noted that while she appreciated her team’s efforts in the final three quarters, her team’s lack of alertness at the game’s start comes directly from their relative youth and inexperience.
“I think one of the things that kind of gets us in this situation is our youth and our inexperience,” she said. “I have to remind myself sometimes that there’s five sophomores on the floor. There’s players that haven’t been in these situations before. They don’t want to hear that because they want to win today. They don’t care that they’re not experienced. But the thing that we do have is fight, and we do have a ‘no quit’. We’re gonna bounce back. We’re gonna figure it out.”
Both programs don’t necessarily have the level of star power and experience that UCLA or UConn has, but what they both do have is a defensive identity where their level of ball pressure and athleticism can get both teams back into games.
Another similarity between both programs is how they’ve complimented their younger stars with older players who function as do-it-all role players whose voices are valued and respected. For Michigan it’s senior Brooke Quarles Daniels, a 5-foot-7 guard who prides herself on the defensive end of the floor.
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She’s held prolific scorers in Notre Dame’s Hidalgo and most recently Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes to inefficient scoring outputs. She guards the point of attack by picking up her opponents the entire length of the court.
Ohio State’s veteran leadership comes from senior Chance Gray, a sharp shooting guard who scores in bunches quietly especially when defenses are locked in on Cambridge. Gray hit the game winning three-pointer to seal Ohio State’s come-from-behind win against TCU on Monday.
A collision course toward March
With a bit over a month before tournament season picks up again, both Michigan and Ohio State will be looking to write a different chapter after disappointment almost a year ago. If the Big Ten Tournament were to happen today, Michigan would enter as the third seed and Ohio State would earn the fourth.
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The teams would be at opposite ends of the bracket, which if the tournament happened right now could set up a meeting in the championship round if both teams were to get past the hypothetical No. 1 and 2 seeds UCLA and Iowa.
In the month ahead both teams will face off against each other on February 25 in Columbus, Ohio on Peacock at 8:00 pm ET. It will be a must-see matchup between two teams with a lot of young and hungry talent who are gunning to be the dark horses of not just the 2026 Big Ten tournament but of the NCAA tournament that will begin just a couple of weeks later.
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