Ohio State women try to pick up the pieces

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Whatever is or was wrong with Ohio State’s women’s basketball team, coach Jim Foster isn’t going to disclose it.

“I’m not talking about what the issues were,” Foster said Tuesday, his voice rising in volume. “I’m not going to make what the situation was public. I’m just not.”

Something’s wrong.

Because Foster’s Buckeyes have gone from 7-0 and ranked sixth in The Associated Press Top 25 just 31/2 weeks ago to a 9-4 record (0-1 Big Ten) and a No. 20 ranking heading into tonight’s Big Ten home opener against Indiana (8-6, 2-0).

Everything seemed to be going so well, too. Rolling along unbeaten, with signature wins at LSU and against Oklahoma, it appeared the Buckeyes were tuning up for the much anticipated showdown with No. 1-ranked Connecticut on Dec. 19 at Madison Square Garden.

But then came a 75-66 upset loss at unranked but unbeaten Syracuse on Dec. 11. After a rout of overmatched South Carolina-Upstate, the Buckeyes were run out of the gym by UConn, 81-50.

And two days after the high-profile loss to Geno Auriemma’s club, Ohio State turned around and lost at home to Duquesne, 71-67. Then the six-time defending Big Ten champions opened conference play with a stunning 64-51 loss at Michigan, a team that hadn’t beaten the Buckeyes in the last 14 meetings.

Finally, Ohio State calmed things down a bit on Sunday, rolling over Bethune-Cookman, 86-38.

But still, there are questions, and few answers. Just ask starting guard Brittany Johnson.

“I don’t know,” she said, pausing to choose her words carefully. “I think just stuff wasn’t going our way. We were missing shots we never missed. We have to turn it around and if our shots aren’t falling, we have to play defense harder.”

Foster is 725-281 in his 33 years as a women’s head coach at the college level. He’s 221-56 at Ohio State. Foster vaguely referred to the players’ age group to try to explain the abrupt fall.

“When you’re 18 to 22, sometimes things appear to be bigger than they are and you’ve got to figure some stuff out,” he said. “And when you figure the stuff out, you can move on. I think this team has figured some things out. They figured the intensity of effort needed defensively and the ball movement needed offensively. Then, individually, I think people got into a much better place.”

It was pointed out that his previous eight Ohio State teams, all with players in that same range in age, haven’t encountered such a bad spell.

“My response would be, that’s called life,” he said. “Or that certain things that happen for the first time in someone’s life. I’m not going to go into it, but how you react to it and how you deal with it — you just go and you move on.”