Ohio State Women’s Basketball Ranked Second in Big Ten Preseason Poll, Cotie McMahon and Jacy Sheldon Named to Preseason All-Big Ten Team

In the league’s official preseason poll, Big Ten coaches ranked Ohio State as the second-best team in the conference while media members ranked OSU as the league’s third-best team. Both voting bodies chose Iowa as the favorite to win the Big Ten Championship this year, while Indiana is ranked second by the media and third by the coaches.

Ohio State finished fourth in the Big Ten standings last year behind Indiana, Iowa and Maryland, who was ranked as the conference’s fourth-best team entering the 2023-24 season by both coaches and media. Last year’s Buckeyes went on to make the Elite Eight for the first time in 30 years with a run in the NCAA Tournament that included a Sweet 16 win over UConn.

With seven of last year’s eight leading scorers back on the roster this year (with the exception of leading scorer Taylor Mikesell) and a trio of notable transfer additions in Celeste Taylor (Duke), Taiyier Parks (Michigan State) and Kennedy Cambridge (Kentucky), this year’s Buckeyes hope to build off of last year’s success and make a run to the Final Four, which will be played in Cleveland this season.

“We're gonna need some other people to step up, make some shots from the perimeter,” Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff said last week. “But I also think we can be better in some ways. When we add somebody as good as Celeste Taylor on defense, and the other people that we added will provide us probably more depth than we've ever had. And so I think we'll be a little different, but we can be as good and hopefully maybe even better.”

Ohio State is one of just two teams, along with Nebraska, to have two members of the preseason All-Big Ten team. Sophomore forward Cotie McMahon and fifth-year senior guard Jacy Sheldon were both named to the preseason All-Big Ten team by both coaches and media on Tuesday, with McMahon earning a unanimous selection from the coaches.

McMahon, one of five unanimous preseason All-Big Ten selections on the coaches’ team, projects to be one of the biggest stars in women’s college basketball as a sophomore after averaging 15.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game last season to earn Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors. Sheldon, a first-team All-Big Ten selection in 2022, was sidelined by a foot injury for most of last season but re-emerged as one of the nation’s top guards by scoring 69 points across Ohio State’s four NCAA Tournament games.

Ohio State women’s basketball is set to open its season with a neutral-site game against USC in Las Vegas on Nov. 6. The Buckeyes’ full schedule, which was announced Tuesday, includes 10 televised games and six games on Peacock, with the rest of its Big Ten and home games to be streamed on B1G+, the Big Ten Network’s streaming service.