No. 3 Ohio The Buckeyes women’s basketball team went 17-0 and had the best start to the season in show history. On Sunday Scarlett & Gray added her 17th win, but it was a difficult climb. Leading the Buckeyes to victory is what head coach Kevin McGuff calls a “competitive character,” and even if the phrase is new, seeing it at Ohio State makes it. I know.
Like many other games this season, the Buckeyes overcame a deficit to win Marquee 87-81 Conference VictoryThis time, 17 points behind the strong opponent with less than 7 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. illinois fighting illini team.
Ohio State flipped the proverbial switch on Sunday, with forward Coty McMahon continuing his own 7-point run when the Buckeyes lost 17 points with 6:56 left in the third quarter. It’s a competitive personality.
Forward-guard combo Taylor Thierry led everyone on the floor in rebounding in the third quarter and added two more steals and four points. A key performance during a 25-8 run that erased the Illini’s lead with 4:40 on the clock. It’s a competitive personality.
Substitute Hevin Bristow had eight rebounds in just 18 minutes on the court, five of them in the fourth quarter. Again, a competitive character. So what exactly is it?
“We’re going to play what we know we can do and perform what we know we can do,” McGuff said. “When we show how good we are and when we keep it up, that’s a great competitive edge. is not.”
The Buckeyes have had a competitive personality this season. I pressed it.
At various points during the season, Scarlett & Gray lead the nation in runs per game, stolen bases per game, and scoring margin. Maintaining them is no easy task. Especially considering McGuff’s schedule at Ohio State this year, where he faces three ranked teams and an unranked tough team. USF Bulls before Big Ten play begins at the end of December.
Yet, for every impressive district in Ohio, there were equally unimpressive alter-egos.
It was the second quarter on Sunday when Illinois beat the home team on almost every count. Fighting he Illini, he scored 25 points with a shot completion rate of 73.3%. Most of that was due to forward Kendall his Bostic, who scored eight points in the quarter, on his way to a 27-point, 15-rebound performance. Before entering the locker room at halftime, Illinois shot 33.3 percent better than he did.
Illinois also had out rebounds, out assists, out stalls and out blocks in the second quarter. The only area the Buckeyes had more was in turnovers. Not the competitive character one would expect from director McGuff. Players know what it looks like and they know when not following it.
“I went out in the third quarter and put more pressure on them,” said guard Taylor Mycsell, who led Ohio State with 31 points. “And then there was kind of a momentum shift, more energy swinging our way, and then some shots dropped.”
Other words used for a competitive character might be intensity or energy, but it’s more about this Buckeyes, Ohio team. or part of who they are.
That character pushed Ohio State up in the second half of the third when they took the lead for the first time since the start of the first quarter. In the fourth, guard Ricky Harris hit a three to open the scoring and the Buckeyes never looked back and led the rest of the way.
After the match, Mikesell also noted that he carried that sense of urgency into the first half of the game. It was a post-game press conference, not befitting an impressive victory over an Illinois team on an upward trajectory. Instead, he felt like numbness after losing.
“I don’t know. It’s really frustrating,” said McGuff. “I just told them in the locker room, ‘That’s one thing if you’re asking them to do something you can’t do. But I’m just asking you to do what we did.’ We have proven time and time again that when we play the right way and stick to our identities, good things happen.”
Good things are happening. For example, he, who had not lost a game all season and was ranked in the process, defeated four teams and two of his unranked opponents to bring the Buckeyes to the brink. The competitive characters are there, and now McGuff and Scarlett & Gray have shown it for four quarters.
