Riddle me this: a five-star recruit chooses to play basketball at Ohio State. The Buckeyes have had great point guards before, but they never made this kind of impact as a freshman. Pro basketball is clearly in this player's future.
With clairvoyant court vision and a flick of the wrist, this player finds teammates for open jumpers. The point guard streaks past pressing defenders for acrobatic layups, punishes wariness by sinking long threes, and uses a silky crossover to create space for open jumpers in the lane.
Now, am I talking about D'Angelo Russell or Kelsey Mitchell?
Forgive the use of one of the most hackneyed tropes around – this person you thought was a boy is actually (gasp!) a girl – but in this case there's a good reason for it. Men's basketball is the second biggest sport at Ohio State, and thus Russell is the talk of the town. Mitchell has been just as good for the women's team, and she deserves to rise above obscurity.
| Name | Team | PTS |
|---|---|---|
| KELSEY MITCHELL | OHIO STATE | 25.9 |
| DAMIKA MARTINEZ | IONA | 25.1 |
| KELSEY PLUM | WASHINGTON | 24.5 |
| TAY'LER MINGO | WRIGHT STATE | 23.9 |
| BRITTANY CRAIN | U.C. RIVERSIDE | 23.8 |
If you're not familiar with Ohio State's women's basketball team, you're not alone. The women's team is having a season eerily similar to the men's team: they have matching 6-3 Big Ten record, and their RPI rankings are nearly identical (35th vs. 36th). Yet the Schott draws 4,500 fans per game for women's basketball, less than one-third the attendance of men's games.
Longtime women's basketball coach Jim Foster was fired in 2013, with waning interest in the program and postseason failures as two reasons for his dismissal. His replacement was Kevin McGuff, who was given two mandates: recruit Ohio better and win postseason games.
The Buckeyes struggled to a 17-18 record in McGuff's first year, but they made a run to the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament. McGuff fulfilled the other part of the mandate by bringing in a strong 2014 recruiting class, seventh best in the nation according to espnW.
Without question, Kelsey Mitchell was the best of the bunch. Some recruiting analysts called her the top player in the country; pessimistic evaluators listed her as a top five prospect. She was expected to make an immediate impact in Columbus, and she has, playing 36 minutes a game.
Mitchell isn't the only freshman making an impact on the women's basketball team. Of the four other players in the 2014 recruiting class, three were top 100 prospects. Two of them, Alexa Hart and Asia Doss, are already starters. Hart, a forward from Columbus Africentric, is the team's top rebounder and interior scorer. Doss, a point guard from Detroit, has the team's best assist to turnover ratio (64:35).
The other two will have to wait until next year to make an impact. Makayla Waterman, a forward from Fairmont, underwent knee surgery in October, and Chelsea Mitchell, twin sister to Kelsey, suffered a season-ending knee injury later that month.
The Buckeyes have been forced to use a seven-person rotation due to the injuries, which has helped Kelsey Mitchell to thrive. The freshman from Princeton High School in Cincinnati made headlines two weeks ago by scoring 37 against Minnesota, and she followed it up with a 36-point performance against Purdue.
Mitchell is averaging 25.9 points per game, making her the nation's leading scorer. In large part that is because of volume: she has taken 420 shots through 21 games, nearly a hundred more than the next most prolific shooter, Ameryst Alston.
Although Mitchell has a low shooting percentage (41 percent), she is a good three point shooter (38.8 percent) and a good free throw shooter (81.9 percent). She is a somewhat streaky shooter, but the reasons for her inaccuracy on two-pointers are rooted in her role in the offense. Much like Allen Iverson or Kobe Bryant, she is charged with taking all the tough shots and bailing out the team.
Though she has the most turnovers on the team Mitchell has the most assists as well. She shares the assist distribution with Alston, Doss and Cait Craft.
Mitchell's goals were clear before she even came to Columbus. "I really want to be in a national championship," Mitchell said upon committing.
The 2014-2015 team won't get there; at 14-7, there is little hope for a high seed or a run to the Final Four. The Buckeyes project as a 9 or 10 seed now, with road games at Iowa and Nebraska making the path to the tournament more perilous. But there are no seniors on this team: next year, with an extra year of experience for everyone and a healthy roster, Ohio State could be a dangerous team.
In the last decade, Ohio State women's basketball has produced three All Americans: Jessica Davenport, Jantel Lavender, and Samantha Prahalis. Whether or not Mitchell finishes 2015 as the nation's leading scorer, next year is her chance to join the club.
