The Buckeye women closed out their week on the West Coast tonight against USC, and they won’t be in a hurry to go back to Los Angeles. After losing 65-52 on Wednesday to the undefeated, 1st ranked UCLA Bruins, the Buckeyes fell to JuJu Watkins and USC on Saturday night, 84-63. Ohio State drops to 20-3 (9-3) and third place in the Big Ten, while USC is 21-2 (11-1) and in second in the conference.
The Buckeyes even did a decent job on defending the best player in women’s college basketball. They held Watkins to 17 points, and she shot less than 29% from the field (she had been averaging 24 points on 44% shooting). The rest of the team shot 44% from the field to the Buckeyes 29.4%. Couple that with the USC out-rebounding Ohio State 62 to 30, and you get a 21-point defeat.
Ohio State has developed a bit of a reputation for coming up short in the big games. Despite beating UConn in the 2023 NCAA tournament to go to the Elite Eight and upsetting Iowa and Caitlin Clark last year, it just keeps on being an anchor weighing them down. That perception reemerged when losing to #7 Duke in the tournament last year as a #2 seed. Now, losing pretty emphatically to the two best teams on your schedule reinforces that notion.
This is a reputation Ohio State has had under two former head coaches, Jim Foster and current head coach Kevin McGuff (though McGuff had similar struggles at Xavier). The Buckeyes will have pressure on them to get past this obstacle every chance they get moving forward.
The good news is that Ohio State will play four of their final six games in Columbus. Starting with Minnesota (18-6) on Thursday and Iowa (16-7) on Monday the 17th. After that, they go to (15-7) Indiana, they host Purdue (8-14), then Michigan State (18-4), and finish at Maryland (18-5). There are plenty of quality teams the Buckeyes will need to beat as they make a push toward the postseason.