Ohio State women’s basketball earned its second top-10 win in nine days at the Coretta Scott King Classic on Monday.
The Buckeyes defeated No. 9 TCU, 71-69, in a neutral-site non-conference game in Newark, New Jersey, to earn their sixth straight win and improve to 17-2 on the season.
| TEAM | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | FINAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #12 OHIO STATE | 8 | 25 | 14 | 24 | 71 |
| #9 TCU | 18 | 18 | 13 | 20 | 69 |
Despite never leading the game until the final minute of the third quarter, Ohio State battled its way past the Horned Frogs in the second half, handing TCU its second loss of the year.
Chance Gray scored 22 points, including six made 3-pointers, to lead the Buckeyes to victory. Jaloni Cambridge posted 18 points, six rebounds, eight assists and two steals while Elsa Lemmilä contributed 17 points, seven rebounds, five assists, six blocks and two steals.
The win came just nine days after Ohio State, which is ranked 12th in the AP Top 25, earned its first top-10 win of the season over Maryland, which was ranked eighth in the country at the time.
Much like the Maryland game, Monday’s game got off to a slow start for the Buckeyes, who made just three of their 15 shots from the field in the first quarter, allowing TCU to open up an 18-8 lead. Olivia Miles outscored Ohio State by herself in the first 10 minutes, finishing the opening quarter with nine points and five rebounds while the Buckeyes had only six first-quarter rebounds as a team.
Gray opened the second quarter with a pair of 3-pointers to cut TCU’s lead to four. TCU extended its lead back to nine with an 8-3 run, but Ohio State responded with a 12-6 run that included two more threes by Gray. TCU pulled back ahead by seven with a pair of layups, but Ohio State scored the final four points of the first half on free throws by Lemmilä and Kennedy Cambridge to make it a 36-33 game at the break.
The Buckeyes took their first lead of the game with 59 seconds remaining in the third quarter on a 10-3 run that included six points from Lemmilä. TCU took a 49-47 lead into the fourth quarter thanks to a Taylor Bigby three with one second left to play in the third quarter, but Ohio State started the fourth quarter on a 7-0 run to pull ahead by five.
TCU knotted the score at 54-all with two free throws by Miles and another three by Bigby. The teams traded baskets for most of the fourth quarter from there, with neither team leading by more than three points until Gray hit her sixth three of the game to give Ohio State a 70-66 lead with 15.3 seconds to play.
TCU’s Veronica Sheffey hit a contested three with .6 seconds left to play to make it a one-point game, and the Horned Frogs got a chance for one final shot after Jaloni Cambridge missed the rim on an intentionally missed second free throw after making the first. But Lemmilä stole TCU’s inbounds pass to seal a two-point victory for the Buckeyes.
Ohio State will look to earn its seventh win in a row when it hosts Indiana at the Schottenstein Center on Thursday (8 p.m., Peacock).
