Ohio
Possible Caitlin Clark upset? Ohio State women look to snap No. 2 Iowa’s 15-game winning streak
In front of what is expected to be the largest home crowd in program history, Ohio State’s women’s basketball team will have its most anticipated matchup of the season against Iowa at noon Sunday.
With the biggest name in college basketball, Caitlin Clark, playing in what might be her final collegiate game at Value City Arena, and the Hawkeyes riding a 15-game winning streak, the ball is in the Buckeyes’ court to make a statement and pull off the upset.
Ohio State is no stranger to this Iowa roster and has seen Clark in its past five outings against the Hawkeyes. The Buckeyes have a 3-2 record in those matchups over the past three seasons, but the losses are fresh wounds as both occurred last year, the most recent one being a 105-72 loss in the Big Ten tournament final.
The impact of having a player such as Clark can never be understated. It is something that Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff has seen become even more of a threat every year.
“I think where she’s impacted their program the most this is, just last year and especially this year, she’s making everybody around her better,” McGuff said. “I think early on people focused on how much she was scoring. She’s going to score, but it’s really about how well she makes everybody around her better.”
More on Caitlin Clark in Columbus: The Caitlin Clark effect: How it’s impacting young women’s basketball fans in Columbus
Defending against Clark and the Hawkeyes
Averaging around 90 points per game, all the Hawkeyes’ scoring can’t just come from Clark, even if she does lead the nation with 31 points per game and is fourth on the NCAA all-time scoring list. Around her, there are players such as Kate Martin and Hannah Stuelke, who are contributing by averaging double-digit scoring.
As a team that usually relies on an “all or nothing” press to generate turnovers and has been improving in its half-court defense, Ohio State will have to be locked in while defending against Iowa. One of the Buckeyes’ newest additions, Celeste Taylor, who is the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year, is confident in her team’s abilities based on their practices.
“When we go against each other in practice, we’re playing against great players all the time,” Taylor said. “That helps us prepare for games like this against really good players, who have multiple threats on the floor.”
Knowing how important the time between the Maryland victory on Wednesday and the upcoming Iowa game has been, having strong outings in practice is Ohio State’s main focus. McGuff admits it is difficult to simulate the skills of Clark during practice because of the way Iowa’s offensive runs through her.
The sellout crowd will also factor into the game. With more than 18,000 people expected to attend, Value City Arena is going to be loud. To help ensure his team can communicate through the noise, McGuff considered turning up the music at practice.
The challenge of containing Clark excites the Buckeyes, especially Taylor, who hasn’t faced Iowa since her junior year at Duke.
“We’re going be all over the place. It’ll probably be between me and TT (Taylor Thierry),” Taylor said in terms of who will be defending Clark. “But everybody’s going to have their hand in it, because it’s not just one-on-one, it’s a team against another team.”
The road to the Hawkeyes
There have been other challenges the Buckeyes have had to face prior to this game.
Opening the season up with a loss to Southern California and then falling to then-No. 2 UCLA a month later, Ohio State saw tough competition early on. More recently, the Big Ten schedule has proven to a challenge, with Ohio State already being handed a conference loss on the road against Michigan.
Even in their last two victories over Michigan State and Maryland, the Buckeyes were fighting to the end.
“These difficult teams leading up to this Iowa game has been really good for us,” Theirry said. “It’s exposed us in some areas that we need to improve in.”
The Buckeyes are ranked third to last in the conference in rebounding and will be going up against and Iowa team that is leading the Big Ten in that category.
If the Buckyes are going to win this game, they need everyone to be contributing on offense. After going 4 for 26 from the 3-point line against Maryland, the Buckeyes will need to find ways to get to the basket if that trend continues on Sunday, which might prove to be difficult against Iowa’s defense.
“They play a lot of zone,” McGuff said. “So I think they’re going to try to force us to score from the perimeter. So we have to make shots and but also execute in a way where we can get some balance in our offense.”
bmackay@dispatch.com
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
Have a question for Just Askin’? Email us.
The Just Askin’ series aims to answer the questions that no one seems to have an answer for, except maybe Google.
Do you have a question you want answered? Send it to us at justaskin@enquirer.com, ideally with Just Askin’ in the subject line.
It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
-
Vermont3 minutes agoVermont teen dies in crash with tree
-
Virginia9 minutes agoPHOTOS: Virginia Beach Police investigate firearm-related incident at Carriage House Apartments
-
Washington15 minutes ago18-year-old dies after shooting in Tenleytown
-
Wisconsin21 minutes agoWisconsin multi-county police chase, 2 people from Illinois arrested
-
West Virginia27 minutes agowvnews.com | WVNews | Trusted West Virginia News, Sports & Local Coverage
-
Wyoming33 minutes ago(LETTERS) Sun Bucks and Wyoming GOP endorsement
-
Crypto39 minutes agoLagarde Blocks Euro Stablecoin Push, Calls $300B Market a Stability Risk for ECB Policy
-
Finance45 minutes agoBofA revises Harley-Davidson stock price after latest announcement