With the Big Ten playing the women’s tournament one week before Selection Sunday, it is quiet for No. 3 Ohio State women’s basketball after nearly five months of constant action with multi-game weeks, cross-country travel, and the endless pursuit of victory.
That changed when the NCAA announced the 68-team tournament field on Sunday. Now, the Buckeyes have a road to the program’s first national championship, and it begins Saturday against the No. 14 Howard Bison, the MEAC Tournament and regular season champions.
Advertisement
During that week away from the spotlight, Ohio State worked on itself, which is normal when there is an unknown opponent ahead. There were areas of improvement to address for the Buckeyes after their 72-62 loss to the UCLA Bruins in the Big Ten Tournament semifinal, but what happened for the Bruins in the conference tournament finale should have made Ohio State feel a little better.
UCLA ended the Big Ten Tournament with a win over the Iowa Hawkeyes, to put it lightly. The Bruins showed no mercy in a 51-point, 96-45 victory over the Hawkeyes for the outright Big Ten regular season champions. That performance broke the conference tournament record for largest winning margin, which erased the 33-point defeat the Buckeyes had against the same Hawkeyes back in the 2023 championship game.
Ohio State battled against the Bruins, won the second half, and showed the team’s ability to keep up with the No. 2 overall seed in the 68-team March Madness field. Head coach Kevin McGuff and the Buckeyes do not see it that way.
“I didn’t get a chance to watch it. Obviously, I saw the score like everybody,” McGuff told reporters. “We’re not into moral victories around here at all, but for us to compete and give ourselves a chance against certainly one of the top teams in the country, and then for them turn around, do what they did [last Sunday]. I don’t know that we took confidence from it, but just a reminder of, ‘hey, we have played against the very best teams in the country, and we’ve learned a lot about ourselves.‘”
Advertisement
What the Buckeyes take from those lessons is on display Saturday at 11:30 a.m. ET when Ohio State welcomes Howard. It is the fourth year hosting the first two rounds for Ohio State, with diminishing results each season. A late win over the North Carolina Tar Heels in 2023 moved the Buckeyes into the Sweet Sixteen, but the last two years have been a different story.
The Scarlet and Gray fell in the second game of March Madness in each of the past two editions. While they were against fellow Power Four talents in Duke and Tennessee, consecutive losses at home could start to get into people’s heads.
Add that on top of the UCLA loss, where one rough quarter did the Buckeyes in, and it has the potential to make a negative impact on how Ohio State prepares for this NCAA Tournament.
“Our team has always done a good job of bouncing back. I’m moving to the next game with focus and just preparing,” guard Chance Gray told reporters. “We do a good job. I think that’s been one of our strengths this year, is being able to have a short-term memory and turn around, be able to get better for the next game.”
Advertisement
Results support Gray and the Buckeyes. Ohio State only appeared down on themselves once this season. After a heated game between the Buckeyes and the Maryland Terrapins that ended with a one-point home defeat for Ohio State, McGuff’s side traveled to Minnesota, where they lost by 13 points to a No. 4 tournament-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Those two losses make the only losing streak for the Buckeyes this season. In the previous three losses, Ohio State always came back to win the next game, and even made up for the previous loss to the Golden Gophers with a quarterfinal victory against Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament.
“Poise is going to be our best way to go about it and approach it, just keeping a level-headed mind,” Gray said. “I think when we get too sped up, or we get our minds racing, I think that’s what our downfall is. So my job this week is just to keep everybody as calm as they can and believe in themselves, in their roles, and I think we’ll be okay.”
Gray is the epitome of poise this season. In the guard’s first season with Ohio State last year, early shooting struggles made Gray timid. Playing primarily as a shooting guard, Gray’s effectiveness lessened as the season fizzled in the NCAA Tournament.
Advertisement
This year, those comebacks and team success go alongside Gray. The misses do not slow her down anymore, and the guard averaged a career high 17 points per game since the start of 2026. That poise earned Gray a spot in the Big Ten Tournament’s All-Tournament team, the only player not in the championship game to earn that honor.
Poise is not only the hyper-focus of looking at the team ahead or moving past mistakes, but also ignoring the future. Ohio State could possibly play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Second Round, should the Buckeyes beat the Bison and Notre Dame defeat the Fairfield Stags on Saturday.
It is a game that features two primetime schools in what could be a primetime-slotted matchup.
There is plenty to look ahead to, but the stakes are higher in March Madness. For Ohio State and 67 other Division I programs, the tournament represents the final games of a team’s season. A loss welcomes the offseason, and for many players like Gray, it ends an NCAA career. Gray is taking it with more poise than most.
Advertisement
“I’m just staying in the moment, not looking too far in the future,” Gray said. “I’ve had a blessed year with this team and a blessed season to end on, so I’m just very grateful.”
It sounds like Gray is ok with however the games land or she is showing the poise to help the Buckeyes get further than they have in three years.
