After losing on its home floor in the second round of each of the last two NCAA Tournaments, Ohio State faces another challenging second-round matchup at the Schottenstein Center on Monday.
To advance to the second weekend of the tournament for the first time in three years, Ohio State must overcome a matchup with No. 6 seed Notre Dame and Hannah Hidalgo, one of the nation’s best players. A three-time All-American, Hidalgo is the nation’s third-leading scorer this season, averaging 25.2 points per game. She also leads the nation with 5.5 steals per game, to go along with 6.5 rebounds per contest and 5.3 assists per game. She started NCAA Tournament play with a spectacular game on Saturday, tallying 23 points, nine rebounds, eight steals and six assists in Notre Dame’s 79-60 win over Fairfield.
Limiting Hidalgo’s ability to take over the game will be crucial to the third-seeded Buckeyes’ quest to beat the Fighting Irish. Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff believes the first step is taking care of the ball and not letting Hidalgo score easy points off turnovers.
“She gets a lot of steals in the open court, live-ball turnovers, and she just turns them into uncontested layups. If you give her too many of those, now you're six, eight, 10 points that are just uncontested and almost free,” McGuff said. “So we've got to take care of the ball in general, I think is a big deal. On the other end of the floor, I don't know that we're going to stop her, but can we slow her down? Can we make her work through everything that she gets? I think those will be two really big keys.”
Hidalgo won’t be the only star point guard on the floor in Monday’s game, as Ohio State also has one of the nation’s best point guards in Jaloni Cambridge. A second-team AP All-American this season like Hidalgo, Cambridge has averaged 22.8 points with 5.6 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.9 steals per game this season, so slowing her down will be just as important to Notre Dame in its quest for an upset.
“Jaloni is an incredible guard,” said Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey.
Cambridge and Hidalgo know each other well, having previously played together and practiced against each other for Team USA in various international competitions, so they’re excited for the chance to go head-to-head with each other in the NCAA Tournament.
“We played against each other at (USA Basketball team trials) and everything like that, so we've had this matchup before a couple times. But it's super exciting, another phenomenal guard like Jaloni, and to be able to go head-to-head with her, it's going to be a fun game,” Hidalgo said. “Two quick guards, too; she's extremely fast, she ran track, so the foot speed is going to be crazy.”
“I’m excited to play her,” Cambridge said of Hidalgo. “She can do everything, especially on the defensive end. She's a two-way player, so I really look up to her just about what she does and how she carries herself.”
Ohio State and Notre Dame’s coaches are very familiar with each other, too. McGuff was an assistant coach at Notre Dame during Ivey’s playing career for the Fighting Irish, and Ivey started her coaching career as an administrative assistant on McGuff’s staff at Xavier. Ivey considers McGuff’s wife Letitia, also a former Notre Dame player, to be one of her best friends, and she’s the godmother of one of McGuff’s daughters, so she’d prefer not to be in a situation where one of them will eliminate the other from the NCAA Tournament.
“He's family,” Ivey said. “So hate that this was the road, obviously, but he's somebody that I love. I love their whole family and it's going to be exciting to play them on Monday.”
That said, both coaches will still be as motivated as ever to lead their teams to victory.
“I think the world of her and the job that she's done at Notre Dame. I think she's done a terrific job and will only continue to do amazing things. We're both competitive people in competitive professions, so we're both going to show up and try to win tomorrow, of course,” McGuff said. “And then after that, we'll move on and the relationship will stay the same.”
Ohio State certainly shouldn’t be lacking for motivation entering Monday’s game after what happened the last two years. Despite having home-court advantage as a top-four seed, the Buckeyes lost to No. 7 seed Duke in the second round in 2024 and No. 5 seed Tennessee in the second round in 2025.
Ohio State sophomore center Elsa Lemmilä said Friday that the Buckeyes’ mission for the first weekend of the tournament is “to get out of the Schott” – meaning, advance past their first- and second-round games at home. Guard Kennedy Cambridge, the only Buckeye who’s been on the team for three years, echoed that message on Sunday.
“I'm going to do whatever I can to get us out of the Schott this year,” Cambridge said.
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Ohio State, which has gone 27-7 this season, is a 6-point betting favorite to beat Notre Dame, which has a 23-10 record. But Hidalgo says the Fighting Irish embrace their underdog status and hope the Buckeyes will feel the pressure of trying not to lose on their home court for a third straight year.
“I don't think we have any pressure going into this game,” Hidalgo said. “I think it's a lot of pressure hosting and being expected to win, so we're just going to go out, we’re going to have fun and play with confidence like we’ve been doing these past few months.”
With that in mind, the Buckeyes are trying to approach Monday’s game the same way they approach every game, with a focus on their preparation, fundamentals and playing hard for 40 minutes.
“We're just really trying to focus on being the best version of ourselves,” McGuff said. “Make sure we play extremely hard. Just do the fundamental things that make our team good. And then play to win the game.”
Ohio State vs. Notre Dame will tip off at 4 p.m. Monday at the Schottenstein Center and will be televised by ESPN.
