The young Bucks will be tested from start to finish during the upcoming season.
The Ohio State women’s basketball team will face off against three teams who finished among the top seven in the nation (Coach’s Poll) last season.
Early in the season, the Scarlet and Gray will welcome perennial power UConn on Nov. 24 and ACC champion Louisville on Dec. 5 to the Schottenstein Center. The Huskies advanced to the 2019 Final Four and finished third in the Coach’s Poll, while Louisville lost to UConn in the regional final and finished sixth.
The Buckeyes will open the season with the Ohio Hall of Fame Challenge, which is being hosted by Wittenberg University. They will play Valparaiso on Nov. 10 in a neutral-site game inside Pam Evans Smith Arena.
Ohio State will then play three in-state foes, with one at home and two on the road. The Buckeyes will take on the Bearcats during a No. 13 trip to Cincinnati. Then, they will return home and host Ohio University on Nov. 17, marking the first game between the Buckeyes and Bobcats since 2004.
Ohio State will also renew its rivalry with Kent State on Nov. 21 in Kent. After meeting 13 times between 1966 and 1981, the Buckeyes and Golden Flashes haven not faced off since. The matchup will also represent the Buckeyes’ first road game at a MAC school since playing at Bowling Green in 2000.
Between the time Ohio State takes on national powerhouses, UConn and Louisville, it will travel to Las Vegas for the South Point Shootout. The Buckeyes will square off against two respectable non-Power 5 programs in South Dakota (Nov. 29) and Northern Iowa (Nov. 30) in Vegas.
The Buckeyes have fared well in their last two trips to Sin City, returning with a perfect 5-0 ledger across the two visits. They won both games of the 2015 South Point Shootout and won the title at the Play4Kay Showcase in 2017 with victories against Memphis, FGCU and then-No. 12 Stanford.
Radford comes to Columbus on Dec. 8 for the first ever meeting between the two programs. After mid-term exams, Ohio State will embark on its final nonconference road trip of the season, heading to the West Coast to take on Stanford (Dec. 15) and Sacramento State (Dec. 17).
Stanford, Sacramento State and Ohio State were set to play each other last season, but the wildfires that plagued Northern California in November 2018 forced the cancellation of the Buckeyes’ trip. Stanford offers an interesting challenge for Ohio State, as the Cardinal finished seventh in the Coach’s Poll for 2018-19 and the teams feature two of the top-four recruiting classes in the country.
Game times and TV assignments will be announced later this summer.
