Taylor Mikesell, Cotie McMahon lead Ohio State comeback over Illinois
With just under seven minutes left in the third quarter, No. 3 Ohio State faced a 17-point deficit. Illinois had all the momentum, and had since taking the lead at the beginning of the second quarter.
The Buckeyes overcame a second-half deficit at Minnesota on Thursday, but doing the same again three days later — and with a thin lineup as Madison Greene and Jacy Sheldon are both out with injuries — looked to be a tall task for Ohio State.
After a timeout by coach Kevin McGuff with 6:56 left to play in the third quarter, the Buckeyes began to chip away at the Fighting Illini’s lead. In just 49 seconds, freshman Cotie McMahon scored seven straight points, and Taylor Mikesell, Taylor Thierry and Rebeka Mikulasikova combined for 11 points of their own. By the 2:16 mark of the third quarter, the deficit had been erased.
Led by 31 points from Mikesell, including a 7-of-14 performance from beyond the arc, and 22 from McMahon, the Buckeyes (17-0, 6-0) completed yet another comeback win as they beat Illinois 87-81.
“We’ve proven time and time again that when we play the right way and really stick to our identity, good things happen,” McGuff said. “We just haven’t been doing it for long enough stretches of late.”
The two teams traded blows in the first quarter, and Ohio State went to the free-throw line 10 times in the first 10 minutes to keep itself level with the Illini (14-3, 4-2) despite shooting just 31.3% from the floor. But in the second quarter, the momentum swung in Illinois’ favor from the opening possession of the period.
The Illini made 11 of their 15 shots in the second quarter, led by eight points from Kendall Bostic, while the Buckeyes fought to keep their heads above water. At the end of the first half, Illinois led 47-37, and Ohio State headed into the locker room facing a second-half comeback for the second straight game.
“In the first half especially, they were playing harder, executing better, doing a really good job,” McGuff said. “We were not playing hard or executing. They were making us pay.”
The deficit grew for the Buckeyes over the first three minutes in the third quarter, forcing McGuff to call a timeout and deliver a pointed message to his team.
“We’re either going to fight right now and hit back, or we’re going to get embarrassed,” McGuff said. “We were getting embarrassed. I said, ‘We’ve got a great crowd today here and we’re playing like this?’ “
McMahon took the message to heart and immediately went on a solo 7-0 run, driving to the basket on all three shots and drawing an and-one on the first one. Prior to the timeout, the Buckeyes had missed three consecutive shots, all of them from beyond the perimeter.
“We have the same conversation every single game at halftime,” McMahon said. “We’re not doing what we need to be doing in the first half. We needed someone to step up and get the energy going, so I felt like that was my perfect moment to just take it from there. That’s what I did.”
Mikesell and McMahon combined for 19 of the Buckeyes’ 28 points in the third quarter, and 53 of their 87 total. As the Buckeyes continue to work through Greene and Sheldon’s absences, McMahon feels a responsibility to take on a larger role, and she was unwilling to let Ohio State drop its first game of the season.
“I just felt like, T-Mike can’t do it all by herself,” McMahon said. “She’s a huge part of our scoring aspect, so I felt like this would be the perfect opportunity for me to gain confidence and step in to do what I’m capable of doing. The team expects that out of me, so I just have to do it.”
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