Moments after Ohio State guard Kelsey Mitchell converted an and-1 to open the scoring against the Terrapins women’s basketball team Monday night, starting point guard Chloe Pavlech turned the ball over.
And it soon became clear that Pavlech’s giveaway would evolve into a game-long trend in Columbus, Ohio. The No. 5 Terps had three turnovers when coach Brenda Frese called a timeout less than three minutes in with her team down 7-0, and that number blossomed to seven at the 4:41 mark of the opening period.
By that point, the Terps attempted just eight shots and faced an eight-point deficit.
In a game between the top two teams in the Big Ten, turnovers plagued the Terps throughout. They gave the ball away 23 times, leading to 27 Buckeyes points as No. 7 Ohio State claimed a 94-86 win at Value City Arena.
Frese called the turnover discrepancy “disappointing” and said it allowed the Buckeyes to get easy shots on the other end. The result overshadowed a valiant effort from center Brionna Jones, who finished with a career-high 28 points and made 14 of her 18 shots from the field.
“We beat ourselves tonight,” said forward Tierney Pfirman, who tied her season high with 16 points. “Just us being hard on ourselves and not playing the way we know how to play. I think that’s what got us.”
Guards Ameryst Alston and Kelsey Mitchell, the team’s two leading scorers, combined to make eight of the team’s threes — Ohio State (19-4, 11-1 Big Ten) was 12-for-23 from deep — and finished with 22 and 33 points, respectively. The Buckeyes had just 11 giveaways and took over sole possession of first place in the conference standings.
“They played a really inspired 40 minutes,” Frese said. “Mitchell, Alston, we obviously had no answer for. Terrific guards that really put their team on their back.”
Guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, meanwhile, had a team-high five turnovers as the Terps (21-3, 10-2) suffered their worst loss since falling by 23 in last year’s NCAA tournament semifinals to eventual national champion Connecticut. After combining to score a program-record 71 points over the past two games, Walker-Kimbrough finished with 14 points on 6-for-18 shooting.
The junior’s struggles started early — Walker-Kimbrough entered halftime having missed six of her nine shots — but the Terps stayed with their top-10 counterpart early on thanks to a balanced scoring attack. Pfirman scored on her first four shots to finish the half with 10 points, while guard Kristen Confroy added eight. Despite 13 first-half turnovers compared to four for the Buckeyes, the Terps entered the break down just seven.
Walker-Kimbrough notched back-to-back steals that turned into points early in the third quarter cut the Ohio State’s lead to three, but that’s as close as the Terps would get.
And it was Walker-Kimbrough who fueled the opponent’s run. The Buckeyes scored seven straight over a stretch where Walker-Kimbrough turned the ball over twice and missed a jumper. It ended as a 10-0 spurt, prompting Frese to call a 30-second timeout with the deficit at 13.
Ohio State scored 23 or more points in each of the first three quarters against the Big Ten’s top scoring defense (57.7 points per game) entering the contest. The 94 points the Terps allowed in regulation was the most since Florida State also reached that number against the Terps in 2010.
“We really couldn’t find a rhythm defensively of how we could get a stop,” Frese said. “And then I think not getting stops on defense led to our offense.”
With a one-game lead in the Big Ten standings and the head-to-head advantage, Ohio State appears to have the inside track to beat out the reigning conference champions and earn the regular-season championship. Each squad plays six games before heading to Indianapolis for the Big Ten tournamentMarch 2–6.
But Frese and Jones brought up in the postgame press conference that it’s only February, giving the Terps ample time to prepare and improve for postseason play.
Despite the egregious amount of turnovers, Frese saw some positives. The Terps outscored the Buckeyes, 25-19, in the final frame and found success going inside to Jones, who scored 22 second-half points after a quiet start to the night.
“We still have a lot of basketball to go,” Jones said. “With the turnovers and just mentally, we just weren’t focused throughout the whole game.”
