If Ohio State women’s basketball is known for one thing in the last four years, it is the program’s knack for creating defensive pressure.
Each season ended with the Buckeyes in first place in the Big Ten in forcing turnovers from their opponents. Head coach Kevin McGuff’s game plan, put simply, is to earn extra possessions. The team with more possessions and more chances to score has a good chance of winning.
That kind of defensive work is a team effort. Each year there are standout individual performances that grab attention within that press but the 2025-26 season was different. Sure, the Buckeyes still led the conference in steals but more often than not it was redshirt junior guard Kennedy Cambridge who led the way.
Now, with one season remaining of college basketball for the elder Cambridge sister on the Scarlet and Gray’s roster, Cambridge still has defensive-minded goals but she is not satisfied with her list of established program records.
Name: Kennedy Cambridge
Position: Guard
Class: Redshirt Senior
High School: Ensworth High School (Nashville, Tennessee)
2025-26 Stats: 9.0 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 3.7 spg, 3.3 apg, 41.8 FG%, 30.2 3PT FG%, 61.6 FT%
Last Season
In the 2024-25 season, Cambridge started four games, each of them to fill in for an injury to forward Cotie McMahon. Even with an average minutes per game of 16.5, Cambridge was second on the team with 1.5 steals per game, behind Taylor Thierry’s 2.3 average takeaways.
Per 40 statistics multiply the players impact to estimate what they would do if they played 40 minutes. Cambridge’s 24-25 steals average jumped to a team high 3.8.
Stats are great but Cambridge did not play near 40 minutes until last season. In 29 minutes per game as a first year full-time starter, Cambridge led the Big Ten with 130 steals at a 3.7 steals per game clip. That passed Yvette Angel’s 115 steals as the new program high.
Cambridge had eight games with at least five steals and was one steal shy of tying the single game program high 11 steals when the redshirt junior stole the ball 10 times against Northern Kentucky.
With all of those forced turnovers, Cambridge helped Ohio State move down the court quickly and was crucial for the team’s transition success. After Thierry left the program for the WNBA before last season, the Buckeyes had to make up for her athletic ability that made Thierry so dangerous in the full court press.
While Cambridge does not have the same jumping ability as Thierry, the guard made up for it with her seemingly never-ending engine and motivation to get to the ball.
On January 19, when forward Kylee Kitts suffered a shoulder injury, Cambridge became a Swiss army knife for the Buckeyes. Normally a No. 3 guard, Cambridge slid over to play the No. 4 role and on occasion even slid over to play as Ohio State’s de facto center when Kitts and true center Elsa Lemmilä were on the bench.
Overall, Ohio State’s Defensive Player of the Year candidate carried the torch passed to her by guards Jacy Sheldon, Celeste Taylor and Thierry. Cambridge took it, ran with it and set records that only she might be able to break.
What to Expect
Cambridge does not mince words when it comes to her goal.
The graduate senior wants to be the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. While Cambridge did receive Big Ten Player of the Year consideration last season, the buzzsaw that was the UCLA Bruins center Lauren Betts swept both defensive and the conference Player of the Year honors.
With Betts’ move to the WNBA, Cambridge has the resume to be a favorite for the honor this season, especially if the guard hits her other goal.
“I want to also beat the Big Ten steals record,” Cambridge told reporters. “I think I was off by like nine, so now right now I’m in two. I want to be number one.”
In the 15-16 season, Ashley Deary of Northwestern set the record at 141 steals, 11 more than Cambridge’s 25-26 total. If Cambridge passes the former Wildcat, the next two records are a bit further away. Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo set the women’s overall single season steals record with 193 and Cambridge’s father Desmond Cambridge has the men’s record at 160.
All of Cambridge’s ability on defense eclipses her offense, which is sporadic. In the 24-25 season the guard averaged 4.8 points off the bench and last year it jumped to 9.0 per game as a starter.
Expect that number to go higher this season because Cambridge sees the graduation of former shooting guard Chance Gray as a reason to step up to add more to the team with the ball in her hands.
“I like to travel the world. Unfortunately, I put something before that. So this summer, I literally went from New York back to home, back to New York. So all month of August, I was playing basketball, working out,” said Cambridge.
“You guys know I’ll come down the court on the left side with my right hand, dribble all the way down. Like that, that was the biggest separating piece for me this summer to find a left hand. Also creating my own shot, getting myself open, being able to contribute more than just stealing the ball.”
For all of that extra work, at the expense of globetrotting, Cambridge should come into the regular season with greater confidence with the ball. Ohio State only had two players average at least 10 points per game last season and inconsistency on offense is a big focus for the Buckeyes with Cambridge an important piece of that expected growth.
Prediction
This is the last college season for Cambridge. Last year, Gray had a career season in her final year and the same could happen for Cambridge.
Not much is expected for the guard on offense but she will have career highs in points and deep shooting. Confidence is part of the conversation when it comes to consistent scoring and for Cambridge, her ability to control the game on defense will help fill the confidence gap when the graduate senior inevitably runs into shooting cold spells.
Should Cambridge’s offensive come anywhere close to her work on defense, that is a First Team All-Big Ten kind of season. Even if Cambridge’s scoring does not make a huge jump, Cambridge will continue to be a nuisance to opponents when they try to get up the court on offense.
Highlights
The most complete performance for Cambridge last season came against the Oregon Ducks. In the performance, Cambridge scored 20 points on 5-for-7 shooting.
Defensively, Cambridge grabbed eight steals, the highest number of steals in a game against a Big Ten opponent for the guard and only the eighth time in program history that a Buckeye had at least eight steals against an in-conference program.
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