Supporting cast leads No. 14 Ohio State women past No. 10 TCU 71-69

To celebrate the life of Coretta Scott King, the wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., the Coretta Scott King takes place every Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This year, the annual doubleheader of power conference sides in NCAA women’s basketball included No. 14 Ohio State women’s basketball and the No. 10 TCU Horned Frogs in Newark, New Jersey. Even with a quieter game offensively for point guard Jaloni Cambridge, 22 points from guard Chance Gray gave the Buckeyes a second top-10 win of the season. Ohio State beat TCU 71-69.

First quarter

Before the jump, TCU was already down guard Maddie Scherr. The guard, who averaged a career high 12.5 points per game this season, left Saturday’s game against the Arizona Wildcats holding her lower back. Scherr missed most of the 2024-25 season with a back injury and subsequent surgery.

Ohio State’s first-quarter offense matched the outdoor conditions in New Jersey on the cold winter afternoon. The Buckeyes went 3-of-15 in the quarter, which included an 0-for-4 start for point guard Jaloni Cambridge. However, the Scarlet and Gray defense did well at holding TCU off until the Horned Frogs hit the final three shots of the quarter.

The Buckeyes trailed 18-8 after the first 10 minutes, and making matters worse against the tall TCU side, forward Kylee Kitts only played 3:20 of the opening period after the redshirt freshman picked up two early fouls.

Second quarter

Monday’s focus on Coretta Scott King and her family’s legacy included a connection to Ohio State shooting guard Chance Gray. The guard’s great-grandfather was on the 1959 Freedom Assembly with the Kings and was foundational in the work of the NAACP. On Monday, in the second quarter, Gray took over offensively.

Down 10 points to start the period, Gray hit two three-point shots in the first 1:11 to trim the TCU lead down to four points. Gray ended the quarter with four three-point shots and 14 of the Buckeyes’ 25 points. Even so, it was back-and-forth between the sides where the Horned Frogs hit a three, built their lead, and then Ohio State turned around and went on a mini run.

Inside the paint, TCU’s Clara Silva looked like the far and away better interior player in the first quarter over Buckeye center Elsa Lemmilä, but the tide started to shift in the second quarter. That is when Silva picked up three fouls, all trying to defend passes inside to Lemmilä. The Finnish Buckeye big hit seven of eight free throw attempts.

At halftime, Ohio State trimmed the 10-point deficit down to three points in a close 36-33 matchup.

Third quarter

After Gray took over the second quarter, Lemmilä took her turn leading the Buckeyes. TCU’s Silva picked up her fourth foul, went to the bench, and Lemmilä responded with six points, all of them from layups in the run of play. Kitts, who returned for the second quarter and stayed at two fouls in the game, had a scary moment in the first two minutes of the period. The forward went up for a rebound and caught an inadvertent elbow in the process, but after a short stint in the back, Kitts returned to the game.

However, it was defense that turned the game around in the quarter. The Buckeyes held the Horned Frogs to 3-of-12 shooting in the quarter. With 59 seconds left in the quarter, Ohio State picked up its first lead of the game on a Lemmilä layup. The Buckeyes had a one-point lea,d but TCU’s Taylor Bigby hit a shot from deep to keep Ohio State down two points with a quarter left.

Fourth quarter

Jaloni Cambridge came alive for Ohio State, offensively, in the fourth quarter as both teams traded baskets. The point guard hit a three, part of a seven-point run to start the final 10 minutes. During the tightly battled quarter, Kitts again was on the wrong end of a knock with 5:30 left in the game. This time, it was the forward’s shoulder that required her to go back to the medical room.

Kitts returned at the media timeout with 4:35 remaining, and the timeout came with TCU on a four-shot streak. The fourth quarter alone had five ties, and the game was a toss-up.

TCU leveraged Miles and Silva for its offensive battle down the stretch and scored 10 consecutive points for the Horned Frogs that kept the game either tied or a single-possession lead for either side. A five-point run lifted the Buckeyes over the Horned Frogs, thanks to a three-point shot by Gray with 16 seconds remaining to seal the win. TCU hit a final three-point shot, but the referees had to check the time twice in the closing seconds. Ohio State won, albeit in a delayed gratification moment.

Number of the game: 53

After three quarters, Jaloni Cambridge had eight points on 4-of-16 shooting. The guard still had seven assists in the first 30 minutes, but the sophomore had nine in the fourth quarter. That meant the rest of the Buckeyes had to carry the scoring load.

Gray and Lemmilä combined for 36 points, while Kitts added five points and Kennedy Cambridge scored nine. No bench players made a basket for the Buckeyes in the game.

Key performers

Ohio State

Elsa Lemmilä: 17 points, 7 rebounds, 6 blocks, 4 assists,
Chance Gray: 22 points, 6-for-8 from three-point range
Jaloni Cambridge: 18 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds

TCU

Olivia Miles: 24 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists
Taylor Bigby: 14 points, 4-of-6 shooting
Clara Silva: 12 points, 8 rebounds

Up Next

Ohio State is off until Thursday when the Indiana Hoosiers travel to the Schottenstein Center. After four years of dominant play in the conference, Indiana is winless in its first six Big Ten games.

Head coach Teri Moren’s side lost guard Yarden Garzon to the transfer portal in the offseason, which left guard Shay Ciezki as the lone foundational returner to the roster. Ciezki plays like it too, with a career-high 23.2 points per game, which leads the Big Ten.

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