Ohio State football fans are used to the Buckeyes holding a team to no points. After all, they lead the country in points allowed per game, and are the only program in Division I to allow less than 10 points per game.
Basketball games are a different monster. It does not take minutes and almost 100 yards to get a crooked number on the scoreboard. How rare is it to hold a team to no points in a single quarter in basketball?
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For Ohio State women’s basketball, which started officially in 1965, a scoreless quarter for an opponent only happened once. It was Thursday night against the Bellarmine Knights.
Before Thursday, the best Ohio State has done in holding a team off the scoreboard was against the Cincinnati Bearcats on Dec. 4, 2016, when the Buckeyes held the in-state side to 1 point in the fourth quarter. The previous first-quarter record was three points higher, when the Scarlet and Gray twice held an opponent to four points in the first quarter of games. This new record is unbeatable.
“I looked at the ref and I asked if the score was real, because I didn’t know,” said guard Chance Gray.
In the first 10 minutes of Thursday’s 90-33 lopsided Buckeye victory, Ohio State held an opponent to zero points in a quarter for the first time ever — a moment 60 years in the making.
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“Considering the teams they’ve [Ohio State] had in the past. It’s pretty good,” said Gray.
The Buckeyes are as fresh-faced as ever this season. Of the 11 players on the roster, only five played a minute for Ohio State last season. Of those six, five never played a minute of NCAA basketball until Sunday’s season opener against the Coppin State Eagles.
To Bellarmine’s credit, the no points were not due to lack of effort. In the opening quarter, Bellarmine took 17 shots, the most it took in any quarter of the game. However, it does take two teams for something like a scoreless quarter.
“We’ll look at the film and kind of look at the process of, ‘Hey, did they not score because our defense is really good, or did they miss some shots they might have been able to make?’” said head coach Kevin McGuff. “I think it was a little bit of both.”
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Watch the game film, and Ohio State did not give Bellarmine many open looks. In the 17 shots, only two came without a Buckeye’s hand in a player’s face. The Knights had two mostly unimpeded shots in the quarter, and the first of the two came with 2:44 remaining in the quarter.
That is when Ohio State had its only post lapse, with two players waiting for the other to impede Bellarmine’s leading scorer, guard Triniti Ralston. The guard, who ended the day with her lowest point total of the season (7), made her way into the paint directly in front of the basket, and the attempted open layup that followed clanged off the front of the rim.
Ralston’s layup was the best chance Bellarmine had in the 10 minutes because the group of young Buckeyes, even on full-court press transition, when the Scarlet and Gray are most susceptible, closed down on shooters. On top of that, the Knights more or less avoided the paint altogether in the quarter with forward Kylee Kitts and center Elsa Lemmilä on assignment near the basket.
Speaking of Lemmilä, that transition defensive work rested a lot on her 6-foot-6 shoulders. In the Ohio State havoc-inducing press, the No. 5 role on the team is normally alone for a couple of seconds when the ball goes flying up the court to break the pressure. Lemmilä never gave shooters more than a step or two of space.
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The other open shot came in half-court defense when passes made their way to guard Ava Smith, and that came from an individual moment of smart ball handling. Smith received a pass on the left wing, faked a shot to draw a raised hand by Kitts, and went in for a midrange jumper with 1:57 remaining in the quarter.
An easier way to score would be from the free-throw line, but Ohio State played with discipline defensively and only picked up three fouls. None of those fouls came on a shot, and the Knights had no trips to the free-throw line, another benefit of having more size than your opponent, because Bellarmine did not see the paint as a viable option for shot attempts.
When Bellarmine did score their first point, it came from the charity stripe. After 10:25 of game time had disappeared, forward Rachel Shropshire hit the first of two shots. That elicited raucous applause from all fans in attendance. Some of that support was genuine happiness for the side to finally exorcise the scoreless demon, and then the sarcastic applause and laughs from the Block O student supporters’ section.
Bellarmine scored their first four points from the free throw line. It was not until 3:14 left in the second quarter that the Knights hit a shot in the run of the game clock, when Ralston hit a three-point shot, the first of two shots from deep by the Knights that quarter.
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Overall, Bellarmine went 11-for-60 in the defeat in the 56-point Ohio State rout. While Bellarmine is a newer Division I school with a first-year head coach, the Buckeyes played the opponent in front of them and showed signs of a young team growing in confidence. It was a team playing with fewer nerves. Sunday will be a different story against the UConn Huskies, the reigning national champions.
“We were playing really hard. I think our defense was good at times,” said McGuff. “I think we still will have to be significantly better than we were, even though they didn’t score.”
