BuckeyeGrove.com - Women's hoops has something to prove

October 29, 2009

Ari Wasserman
Staff Writer

CHICAGO - Another Big Ten basketball media day has come and gone for the Ohio State women's basketball team, and everything was the same as it usually is.

As usual, the Buckeyes were picked by the media as the favorite to win the Big Ten this year and star Jantel Lavender was unanimously named the conference's preseason Player of the Year.

Nothing has changed yet for the Buckeyes, but they hope the results eventually will later in the season when they look back at the entire year.

For now, however, things just seem to be par for the course.

"I don't think it is any different this year then what the expectations have been the last five years," head coach Jim Foster said Thursday. "We have been picked to win the league and we are again this year, but I think the players have adjusted and dealt with that. They are used to it."

The Buckeyes have become quite accustomed to being picked to win the Big Ten and even more used to not proving anyone on the media board that makes that selection wrong.

Ohio State has won the last five Big Ten titles and are going for No. 6 in a row this year. The expectations mean little now that they have officially been unveiled because players said they match the expectations the team has already set for themselves.

"I just think it is all about sticking within our boundaries and letting those expectations play out themselves," said reigning Defensive Player of the Year Shavelle Little. "Right now we are just working on being a great basketball team and worrying about what we are going to do in the future just doesn't make sense for us right now."

That may be the case, but thinking about what happened in the past is something that all the Buckeyes ponder. Despite being one of the best teams in the country last season, Ohio State was dispatched in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament by Stanford 84-66.

Lavender, who was named the Big Ten's Player of the Year last year after sharing it her freshman year, admits that she focuses on advancing past that point this year despite living by the "one game at a time" point of view.

This season, however, Lavender hopes to lead her team past that mark in the postseason.

"Everybody wants to come out and beat us and we have to come out with a chip on our shoulders," Lavender said, "We want to be Big Ten Champions this year but we also want to be National Champions."

The Buckeyes certainly have the tools.

Bringing back major talent this year with Lavender and Little returning, the Buckeyes also have an immerging star at point guard that could put Ohio State over the top this season.

Samantha Prahalis, now a sophomore, is coming off a season last year in which she was named the conferences Freshman of the Year after leading the Big Ten in assists.

This season, she hopes for an encore performance.

"Being competitive was there last year," Prahalis said Thursday, "but it is at a new level now. The score gets counted (in practice) everyone comes out of their shell. People are calling fouls and talking and getting worked up. It is competitive (in practice) and it is just going to make us that much better."

While Stanford was the eventually runner-up nationally last year, the Buckeyes remain ticked off about the loss in the tournament, particularly because the score wasn't very close.

Lavender admits to thinking about that game often, but this year she said she doesn't want to have to look back and think, "what-if?"

"We think about it and I think it was a stepping stone to get closer," Lavender said. "I think it just makes us learn and lets us know what playing like that and getting that far feels like.

"It just gets us closer to that NCAA Championship," Lavender added, "and we want it."

Ari Wasserman is a staff writer for BuckeyeGrove.com. He can be reached at Ari@BuckeyeGrove.com.

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