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After three straight early NCAA Tournament exits, Ohio State faces tough questions
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- After three straight early NCAA Tournament exits, Ohio State faces tough questions
After three straight early NCAA Tournament exits, Ohio State faces tough questions
COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Notre Dame's players walked to their postgame news conference, All-America guard Hannah Hidalgo was heard laughing and joking with her teammates.
Fresh off an upset win over No. 3 seed Ohio State, she had reason to be in a good mood.
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"Everybody's bracket is messed up," she said to her teammates. She followed that up with a comment on the postgame news conference podium: "Nobody believed in us."
Though not completely true , that comment is not new to Ohio State fans.
Coming into this NCAA Tournament, Ohio State fans have heard plenty about how the Buckeyes were one of just six teams to host the NCAA Tournament in each of the last four years. Now they are on the opposite side of history.
Monday's 83-73 second-round loss to the sixth-seeded Irish made Ohio State the first team, since the NCAA Tournament format went back to hosting in 2015, to lose at home in the opening rounds in three consecutive NCAA Tournaments. It is also the only team with four home losses in the span, adding in the 2018 loss to Central Michigan.
It's become an unfortunate tradition for a program that is just three years removed from an Elite Eight appearance, which included a Sweet 16 win over Geno Auriemma and UConn. That win over UConn is the only time in the last 17 years that UConn didn't reach the Final Four.
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It was supposed to be the building block for Ohio State and coach Kevin McGuff.
Instead of jolting itself into one of the NCAA's elite programs, though, Ohio State has taken a step back and turned into a program that expects to host, but one everybody else in the country picks to lose at home. The one where opponents come to the podium thrilled to ruin everybody's bracket.
McGuff will be taking the blame (at least from frustrated Ohio State fans) for this one. His NCAA Tournament record is 14-9 in 13 years in Columbus, and in recent years, the expected progress hasn't come.
Fans have voiced their frustration on social media, some asking for a coaching change, but McGuff's buyout of more than $2 million makes that unlikely in the coming months.
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McGuff deserves credit for getting a young team that lost five upperclassmen and didn't earn a preseason rank to become a top-16 seed. That's a feat in and of itself, but losing at home three straight isn't acceptable at a school like Ohio State.
Something must change with how McGuff is running the program, whether that's recruiting, roster building or how he plans a full season. When asked about what needs to change, he deflected to talking about Ohio State's 21 turnovers on Monday afternoon.
"Notre Dame just really made us pay," he said. "They got a lot of easy baskets in transition because of that, and we just couldn't overcome it."
Turnovers tell the story of the second round. Ohio State's miscues were the second-most this season, behind its 24 against UConn in November. Notre Dame scored 25 points off those turnovers.
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That's what Ohio State is supposed to hang its hat on, not the other way around.
The Buckeyes entered the game 17th nationally in forced turnovers; they had just 15 on Monday, six below their average. On the flip side, Ohio State doesn't turn the ball over often, either. It is seventh nationally in turnover margin.
"When you're giving up layups off of turnovers, it's just really hard to overcome," McGuff said. "We were going to have to play a much cleaner game than we played and not turn the ball over if we were going to win the game. And we didn't do it."
Star guard Jaloni Cambridge scored 41 points, which couldn't be properly celebrated because nobody else on the roster scored more than nine points.
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The confusing part about the turnovers is that they were part of the problem last year.
In the 2025 NCAA Tournament, Ohio State had no answer for Tennessee's hockey-line change philosophy and turned the ball over 23 times in the 82-67 loss. In the 2024 NCAA Tournament, with arguably McGuff's most talented team, the Buckeyes turned the ball over just nine times, but blew a 16-point second-quarter lead and never recovered against Duke.
Meanwhile, Ohio State sat at the podium, exhausted and frustrated from the loss again.
"I think that at this time of year, high-level execution has to be a part of the equation to winning," McGuff said. "I think they executed better than we did. Our lack of execution led to turnovers and not enough good looks at the basket. I think that's one of the things we've got to learn."
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Ohio State will return most of its young core next season. It's losing Chance Gray and T'yana Todd, but it will return Jaloni Cambridge and Kennedy Cambridge, barring any transfers, along with sophomore guard Ava Watson and the post duo of Elsa Lemmilä and Kylee Kitts.
"I think if we can keep this group, the core of this group together, and keep growing and getting better, we could really end up in some great places," McGuff said.
McGuff is right. The future is bright for this roster, on paper. Yet that doesn't dim the fan base's frustrated feeling that sees a program with enough talent to be more than a perennial top-32 program.
McGuff has to find answers this offseason.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Ohio State Buckeyes, Women's College Basketball
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