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A 30-win Montana State team is dropped into a bag of Buckeyes amid March Madness | Arace
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- A 30-win Montana State team is dropped into a bag of Buckeyes amid March Madness | Arace
No. 4 seed Ohio State awoke in the second half and ran No. 13 Montana State off the floor in an NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament first-round game at Value City Arena Friday night. The Bobcats blinked, and then it was over. The final score was 71-51.
After a layoff of nearly two weeks, it was a solid performance by the Buckeyes (26-6) against a quality team in the Montana State Bobcats (30-4). The box score is indicative: The five Ohio State starters scored in double digits; each of the four subs pulled at least 11 minutes of playing time; the Buckeyes' defense, and their press, generated 32 points off 26 turnovers; and their offense had 17 assists on 28 made field goals.
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Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff was happiest about the stack of dimes.
"(T)he assists, because I think late in the year and in the first half today, we've struggled with making the extra pass to lead to a better shot," McGuff said. "We finally did that in the second half and reminded ourselves of who we can be when we make that extra pass."
Ohio State Buckeyes forward Cotie McMahon (32) smiles during the first round of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament against the Montana State Bobcats at Value City Arena in Columbus on March 21, 2025. Ohio State won 71-51.
The first half was a hot mess. Ohio State scored 18 points off 14 Montana State turnovers. Credit the Buckeyes for their full-court pressure. Montana State had 13 points off 10 Ohio State turnovers. Credit the Bobcats for their full-court pressure. These teams went hard. Bodies started flying from the opening tip.
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Ohio State started the second quarter with a 6-0 run, then things got hot. Montana State forward Addison Harris , trapped in a corner, got her elbows up on Ohio State's Cotie McMahon. The referees didn't see contact. Moments later, OSU forward Taylor Thierry was called for pushing MSU forward Kaia Henderson out of bounds. It didn't look like Thierry made any contact. Henderson, by the look of it, was tripping her own self. Foul?
Of course, officials are perfect and never miss calls or make bad calls, and they should be excoriated if they do. Student athletics demands it. The temperature in the arena spiked. McGuff went red in the face and was slapped with a technical for jawing at the refs. The fans booed – and this is one of those cases where the descriptor "lustily" can be used, because they were howling. The band director screamed at one referee standing nearby on the baseline: "You are the worst official I've ever seen." TBDBITL!
Ohio State forward Cotie McMahon (32) and guard Chance Gray (21) press Montana State forward Addison Harris.
Montana State shoots 77.7% from the free throw line. Natalie Picton stood alone, absorbed the jeers and catcalls and made the two technical freebies. The Bobcats retained possession, and Picton slashed in for a layup to give Montana State a 27-23 lead with just over 5 minutes remaining in the first half.
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"I grew up watching basketball, like everybody, (watching) those tough games in March Madness," Picton said. " It was just fun hearing them boo me as I was at that line. I think it motivated me to make those two baskets. It was just awesome. I loved it. I loved seeing them wave their hands all around. It was fun. I enjoyed the second quarter."
From then on, not even Kevin Costner's ruthless "Yellowstone" anti-hero John Dutton could save the champions of the Big Sky Conference.
Ohio State scored the last nine points of the second quarter, then the first 15 of the second quarter. Ohio State junior guard Chance Gray hit three consecutive 3-pointers when the teams after the teams came out of the halftime break. The Buckeyes outscored the visitors 23-10 in the third quarter and took a 53-37 lead into the fourth. The fans stopped riding the refs.
Asked what she will take forward to get her program closer to winning one of these games, Montana State coach Tricia Binford said, "The No. 1 thing we're searching for ... is not to play on somebody's home floor for that first game."
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Binford gave Ohio State "all the credit" and wished them well. She and her players acknowledged that the Buckeyes were bigger, faster and physically superior. They spoke glowingly of the talent of their vanquishers.
But Binford has a point. Her team won 30 games, a regular-season Big Sky title and a conference tournament title – and they were given a No. 13 seed and tossed into a lion's den. It's one of those issues that comes up this time of year. While the women's game has made tremendous strides, there is room for improvement. The next steps will be to gain enough popularity (and cash from television rights) to take the home-court advantage out of the first two rounds of the tournament.
In any case, the Bobcats relished the whole experience. They thanked the fans who traveled from Bozeman. They thought the crowd in Columbus was "awesome."
Montana State coach Tricia Binford led the Bobcats to a Big Sky Tournament championship before falling to Ohio State 71-51 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
"Watching them on TV doesn't do justice to playing them on the court," said Bobcats guard Esmeralda Morales, who hit five triples (on seven attempts) and finished with 20 points. "It was a lot of fun."
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Alas, the best team in the Big Sky is not in nearly same class as the team that finished third in the Big Ten – behind the two midwestern powerhouses, USC and UCLA.
Next up for Ohio State, at 8 p.m. Sunday, is No. 5 Tennessee, which vaporized No. 12 University of South Florida 101-66 in the nightcap at Value City Arena. Tennessee (23-9) hasn't gotten past the Sweet Sixteen in a decade, but those orange-and-white uniforms still have cachet. The Volunteers are long accustomed to hostile crowds, their fans travel well, and they're still a bit warm about a certain home-field advantage that another Ohio State team had in December.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State women roll to NCAA Tournament first-round victory
