College athletes are busy. There is practice multiple times a week, conditioning, games of basketball that sometimes require traveling to the other side of the country, and, oh yeah, classes with homework. All of that requires a support structure, and when your family lives nearly 4,500 miles away, it means a large part of that support lives in phones.
For Ohio State women’s basketball center Elsa Lemmilä, this was her life. To make matters more difficult, the 6-foot-7 center was away from her family getting two surgeries that required a lengthy recovery. Lemmilä‘s return to form is a public event, played out every time the Buckeyes step onto the court.
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“It’s kind of hard coming back from an injury when you’re playing mid-season, because it’s these little things that persist throughout the season,” Lemmilä told reporters. “You have to just wait until the off-season to really get completely healthy again. So I’m in that stage, but you play through it.”
At the start of the season, Lemmilä looked like an athlete on the mend. The center started the first three games of the season, averaged four points per game while playing 19.7 minutes per outing. All of the appearances came from the starting lineup, but head coach Kevin McGuff and the Buckeyes sat her in the fourth game of the season, to give Lemmilä’s leg and ankle rest.
Lemmilä’s absence was only one game, but when she returned, it was in a diminished bench role. Over eight appearances, the Finnish big played 15.8 minutes per game, and it looked like McGuff took time to decide the center’s future.
All of Lemmilä’s struggle seems like a thing of the past after the last six games. McGuff put the center back into the starting lineup on Dec. 28 against the then No. 4 UCLA Bruins, and the sophomore responded with the best basketball of her young career.
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Over the last half dozen Buckeye matchups, Lemmilä’s minutes and production jumped to nearly a double-double with 10.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game with 31.7 minutes per appearance. Against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, Lemmilä had her first career double-double, and on Wednesday night tied her career high with 21 points. Last season, against the Ohio University Bobcats, Lemmilä attributed her then career record for points to the fact that she was just plain old taller than any Bobcat on the floor.
The center could not diminish her accomplishment against the Penn State Nittany Lions and 6-foot-6 center Gracie Merkle. The two centers played an efficient offensive battle. Merkle, who holds the top field goal percentage in the country this season at 75.5% and the highest career percentage in NCAA history with 70.5%, hit those numbers thanks to a 10-for-11 performance against Ohio State. Lemmilä was right there with Merkle and shot 10-for-12 from the floor.
Compare the two centers, and Merkle plays a game where the junior’s interior presence leads to mismatches and easy scoring opportunities. For Lemmilä‘s height, the center does not always match up with stronger bigs her size, so the center’s finesse set her apart.
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“She [Lemmilä] really ran the floor. And she’s really fast. She’s a great athlete,” head coach Kevin McGuff told reporters. “You see her get better each week, and she gets more comfortable playing out there. But I thought she ran the floor before Penn State could get their defense set, and she got a lot of easy baskets that way. She also played really well behind the zone and moved herself around.”
Lemmilä also had four assists when the pressure on her increased, plus three steals that came when Penn State tried to throw the ball down the court like a quarterback to try to get over the Buckeye press.
When Lemmilä’s parents and sister watch her play, it is seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, Central Ohio’s timezone. So, when Ohio State fans roll into the Schottenstein Center to watch the Scarlet and Gray for a 6:30 p.m. ET tip, it is 1:30 a.m. in Lemmilä‘s hometown. Also, if the game is on B1G+, the Lemmiläs cannot watch at all because the troublesome Big Ten-specific streaming platform does not work outside of the United States without a VPN, which is a trick to tell the internet you are somewhere else.
On Wednesday, Lemmilä’s mom did not have to worry about all of that because she was in the crowd and had been for over a month. The center’s mom, dad, and sister all spent extended time with Lemmilä over the holidays. Mom spent six weeks, Lemmilä‘s sister stayed a month, and her father spent a few weeks living in Lemmilä’s apartment. For some, spending extended time with family is anything but fun, but for Lemmilä, it meant everything.
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“That was the first time I saw my sister since May,” Lemmilä said. “First time I see my dad and mom since July. So, it’s just it really brings a good boost of support and energy to me after being alone for so many months.”
While Lemmilä‘s mom came to Ohio for the surgeries themselves, a majority of the big’s recovery was on her own, thousands of miles and hours away, from her immediate family. Lemmilä does have extended family in the area, since her mom is a native Ohioan and Ohio State graduate, but nothing beats being around the ones who have always been there. In Lemmilä‘s case, the family that raised her moved all around the globe.
It is hard to argue that the connection between Lemmilä’s family presence and increased production on the court is not significant.
In less than six weeks, Lemmilä went from a player who had to earn minutes back while simultaneously recovering from knee and ankle surgeries to a key piece of Ohio State’s recent run of success. The interior presence brought by Lemmilä and fellow big Kylee Kitts freed up the guards to take more shots, and the Buckeyes’ inside/outside game is the strongest it has been all season.
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Last year, Lemmilä entered the game as a backup for graduate senior forward Ajae Petty. When the freshman entered, coaches expected her to focus on defending opposing bigs like Merkle and UCLA center Lauren Betts. As a starter, Lemmilä has to worry about defending and then trying to find ways to score against people at or above her size. Both sides of that game are coming around for the center.
If the current trajectory continues, the once-weak interior game of the Buckeyes will be a distant memory.
“She’s [Lemmilä] gotten better each week, and you can see that tonight,” McGuff said after Wednesday’s win over Penn State. “She’s light years from where she was in the first game this year, and I still think she’s a ways away from being who she’s capable of being. She’s very talented, she’s a great kid, and she’s working really hard, and so hopefully she can continue to grow and develop this year. And I think sky’s the limit for her in the future.”
