Ohio State Women’s Basketball Advances to Second Round of NCAA Tournament with 80-57 Win over Maine

The second-seeded Buckeyes pulled away in the second quarter and maintained full control from there to earn a comfortable 80-57 victory over the 15th-seeded Maine Black Bears in their first-round game Friday at the Schottenstein Center.

Ohio State will face No. 7 seed Duke in a second-round game Sunday at Value City Arena. The game will tip off at noon and will be televised by ESPN.

Ohio State’s vaunted full-court press and the turnovers it forced made the difference on Friday as Maine turned the ball over 22 times with OSU scoring 24 points off of those giveaways.

Jacy Sheldon led Ohio State with 19 points while Cotie McMahon (13), Celeste Taylor (12) and Taylor Thierry (12) also scored in double figures for the Buckeyes. Anne Simon (25), Olivia Rockwood (15) and Adrianna Smith (11) all scored in double figures for Maine, but the rest of the Black Bears combined to score just six points.

Maine started the game strong, making all of its first five shots including four 3-pointers, three of which came from Rockwood, to take a 14-11 lead into the game’s first media timeout. Ohio State went on an 11-2 run from there, capped by a Sheldon mid-range buzzer-beater, to finish the first quarter with a 22-16 lead.

Ohio State scored 16 of the first 18 points of the second quarter to take a 20-point lead. Maine scored only four points in the first eight minutes of the second quarter before Simon made a pair of buckets in the last two minutes of the first half. Ohio State finished the quarter with another buzzer-beater as Madison Greene drained a three at the horn to give the home team a 43-24 advantage at halftime.

Taylor and Sheldon scored the first five points of the second half to extend OSU’s lead to 24. Maine went on a 9-2 run from there, then McMahon and Taylor combined to score the game’s next seven points to make it a 24-point game again. Maine went on a 10-3 run, with Simon scoring eight points in that span, before Sheldon scored six of the quarter’s final eight points to make it 66-45 entering the final period.

Ohio State went on to lead by as many as 27 points in the fourth quarter and took its starters out of the game early, allowing the Buckeyes to get all 13 of their active players on the court by the end of the contest.

Having not played since a 82-61 Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal loss to Maryland two weeks ago, Ohio State was glad just to get back on the court and get a win under its belt to start NCAA Tournament play. The Buckeyes felt as though they played better against Maine than they had against the Terrapins, though they still feel they can and will need to play better going forward to make a deep run in the Dance.

“Just getting back into the groove of things, we still didn't play a 40-minute game, but we had that game to kind of get back under our feet so we’re ready for the next game,” McMahon said after the game.

Game Notes

• Ohio State is now 7-0 in first-round NCAA Tournament games under Kevin McGuff. The Buckeyes have won at least one NCAA Tournament game in three straight seasons.
• Jacy Sheldon surpassed the 2,000-point mark for her collegiate career and Taylor Thierry surpassed 500 rebounds for her collegiate career in Friday’s game.
• Adrianna Smith, Maine’s second-leading scorer and leading rebounder entering the game, was helped back to the locker room after suffering an injury late in the second quarter. She was able to return for the second half.
• Eboni Walker, who had not played since the Buckeyes’ Feb. 25 regular-season game against Maryland, made her return to action in the fourth quarter.