Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Jaloni Cambridge scored 27 points and Chance Gray added 22 to help No. 9 Ohio State beat Wisconsin 80-69 on Thursday night.

Cambridge, who entered averaging 14.5 points, shot 11 of 16 from the field and added a career-high eight rebounds.

Cotie McMahon added 17 points for the Buckeyes (17-0, 6-0 Big Ten), who are off to their best start since winning their first 19 games in 2022-23.

Serah Williams had 20 points and 17 rebounds and Tess Myers scored a season-high 18 points for Wisconsin (10-8, 1-6), which has lost six straight. The Badgers’ only league victory came against Rutgers on Dec. 8.

Wisconsin held a 37-34 rebounding advantage and made 12 of 29 3-pointers.

Takeaways

Ohio State: Gray made 5 of 9 3-point attempts as the Buckeyes had little trouble scoring inside or outside.

Wisconsin: Reserve Lily Krahn added 16 points and made four 3-pointers for the Badgers, but Williams needs more help. Williams’ double-double was her seventh this season.

Key moment

Myers’ 3-pointer got Wisconsin within 54-51 with 2:12 left in the third quarter, but Ohio State pulled ahead 63-54 by the end of the period. Gray made three free throws with less than a second left.

Key stat

The Buckeyes entered with an average of 11.5 steals per game and finished with 11, including three by McMahon.

Up next

Ohio State plays at Penn State on Sunday. Wisconsin travels to Nebraska on Monday.

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President-elect Donald Trump’s success despite constantly saying the quiet part out loud seems to have spread among other Republicans.

The most recent example is Ohio GOP Chair Alex Triantafilou, who made an appalling admission last week when he claimed the GOP’s “strategy” of “confusing Ohioans” had succeeded in thwarting an anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative that would have created an independent, citizen-led commission to draw the state’s electoral maps.

Triantafilou’s statement during a meeting with Republicans in Fremont was the kind of thing you’re not supposed to admit, at least in public. But it was hardly surprising to supporters of the ballot measure, who complained after Republican officials wrote a summary to be placed on ballots that indicated a “yes” vote would enable — not stop — gerrymandering. A number of voters said the confusing language tricked them into voting against a measure they supported.

That didn’t bother Triantafilou.

“A lot of people were saying, ‘We’re confused! We’re confused by Issue 1.’ Did you all hear that? Confusion means we don’t know, so we did our job,” Triantafilou said, according to the Fremont News Messenger. “Confusing Ohioans was not such a bad strategy.”

Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters responded in a statement, saying she’d never heard such a brag and that it’s “the oldest trick in the book to not tell voters the truth to get what you want.”

Triantafilou did not respond to a request for comment.

The failure of Issue One left Republicans in control of the redistricting process, which they have used to gerrymander the state’s districts in ways that benefit Republicans and disadvantage Black voters. It’s reminiscent of the old tricks used during the Jim Crow era to maintain power, as elections officials would do things like ask impossible questions as part of a “literacy test” of Black voters.

Triantafilou and other Republicans didn’t go that far, but their dubious “strategy” of confusing voters will nonetheless fortify a system that serves the GOP and white conservatives in particular.

This is the kind of trickery we can expect from Republicans in the months and years ahead as they look to shore up their power. In recent years, the convictions of far-right activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for attempting to confuse voters about their voting rights, and of activist Douglass Mackey for his plot to misinform voters about how they could cast their votes, have revealed a certain desperation among some conservatives to gain a political advantage through any means at their disposal.

It’s almost like some of these Republicans don’t believe they could win a fair fight.

Flags at the U.S. Capitol and in multiple states will now be flown at full-staff on Inauguration Day, despite a nationwide mandate for flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of former President Jimmy Carter.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced today that he has suspended the 30-day mourning period and will allow flags to be displayed at full-staff for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Flags in eight states, including Texas, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida, will also be raised on Monday.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ordered U.S. and state flags to fly at half-staff following Carter’s death, but will he reverse the order for the state of Ohio? Here’s what we know.

Will Gov. Mike DeWine raise Ohio flags for Donald Trump’s Inauguration?

Flags in Ohio will remain at half-staff on Inauguration Day, according to Dan Tierney, a spokesperson for DeWine.

“Ohio hasn’t made any changes and does not anticipate making any changes to the flags,” Tierney told the Columbus Dispatch.

Which states will raise their flag on Inauguration Day?

So far, governors from at least eight states have announced plans to raise the U.S. flag on Jan. 20th: