Freshman forward Cotie McMahon smiled near half court, watching as No. 10 Iowa celebrated an 83-72 victory at the Schottenstein Center, snapping the No. 2 Buckeyes 19-game winning streak on Monday night.
Iowa junior guard Caitlin Clark led the Big Ten showdown with 28 points, piling in a triple-double and solidified the win by taking home an Ohio State’s dub chain T-shirt as the Hawkeyes (16-4, 8-1 Big Ten) pushed past the Buckeyes (19-1, 8-1 Big Ten).
“I was just thinking in my head like, you know, seeing that we kind of have to smile through it and move on to the next. We’re not worried about this game anymore,” McMahon said. “We got Indiana next, and that’s all we’re worried about. The game was over when the buzzer hit, so there’s nothing we can do about it.”
This marked Ohio State’s first loss of the season as it battled in front of a sold-out women’s basketball crowd of 9,955, most in a game this season. Head coach Kevin McGuff said the team takes a lot of pride in their home court, and the loss will motivate them to play better and execute down the stretch moving forward.
“The crowd was incredible. I really appreciate the community getting behind this team,” McGuff said. “Even though we didn’t play well tonight and lost, I’m hopeful that they’ll continue to show up because it’s been very impactful for our season.”
Fans from both teams’ voices echoed throughout the Schottenstein Center, as both teams shot over 50 percent from the field in a back-and-forth contest from the opening tip-off.
In the first quarter, both big’s battled inside, as both center-forwards led their respective team in points to end the quarter. Senior forward Rebeka Mikulasikova led the Buckeyes with eight points, and fifth-year center Monika Czinano put up 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting.
A 3-point buzzer beater by senior guard Taylor Mikesell put the Buckeyes up 24-23 to end the quarter, which would only be two of 10 3s to fall as the Buckeyes shot 16 percent from 3-point range on the game.
“I don’t think we were asking anybody to do anything that they weren’t capable of doing. But we just we didn’t make a lot of shots tonight,” McGuff said. “You’re not going to beat Iowa the way they were guarding us if that was the case.”
Clark, the nation’s third leading scorer, put the Hawkeyes up by six points midway through the second quarter after a pull-up 3 from the halfcourt logo, leading McGuff to call a timeout. Junior forward Taylor Thierry, who also had a 20-point night, was Clark’s primary defender throughout the game.
“She’s one of the best players to play the game in college basketball. She can handle the ball really well, she can shoot really well, and she can score at all three levels,” Thierry said. “It kind of just motivated us, you know, to do our best to guard her, and I think we kind of did good at some points and other times we just need to work on some things.”
Poor shooting from the Buckeyes would cause them to fall behind 43-34 to end the half, as they shot 39 percent from the field and 17 percent from 3-point land. The team went 5-for-18 from the field on the last 20 shots, while the Hawkeyes shot 53 percent and added in 15 assists.
Opening the second half, the Hawkeyes stretched the lead to 12 points, their largest of the quarter, after a layup by sophomore guard Sydney Affolter, leading McGuff to once again call another timeout at 5:52.
From that point on, McMahon and Thierry led the charge combining for 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting. McMahon found Thierry with 2:23 left for a layup which cut the lead to six, and the freshman would later score a layup putting the Buckeyes inches away from the Hawkeyes at 56-54.
Although Iowa shot 5-for-17 from the field in the quarter, this was the closest lead the Buckeyes would see for the rest of the game. Iowa’s defensive rebounding proved to be too much for the Buckeyes to handle as they got outrebounded by 20, 51-31.
“We just have to focus on defense, when a shot goes up, we have to rebound. When they get a shot up, we got to rebound,” Thierry said. “I think, you know, at times we got tired and lacked focus, but we just have to keep that in mind when playing teams that are really good at rebounding.”
The Buckeyes are hoping to get back in the win column Thursday night as they face No. 6 Indiana at the Bloomington Assembly Hall. Tip-off will be at 8:30 p.m. on Big Ten Network.
