Ohio State Buckeyes Up to No. 8 in Latest AP Poll

Kevin McGuff's Ohio State Buckeyes have been on a roll, and it's beginning to show in the polls.

Ohio State rose four spots to No. 8 in the Week 13 Associated Press rankings Monday after yet another undefeated week.

The Buckeyes (17-3, 8-1 Big Ten) stand at the top of the conference after going undefeated in the month of January, with a big 100-92 win over now-No. 3 Iowa in double overtime.

After a slow start to the season, sophomore forward Cotie McMahon seems to have regained her confidence on the offensive end —she has scored in double figures in every game in the Buckeyes' seven-game win streak.

In fact, in the three games Ohio State has lost, McMahon has scored in single digits. In a 71-68 win at Purdue Sunday, she didn’t score very well but distributed the ball at a very high rate, recording eight assists in 29 minutes.

Senior guard Jacy Sheldon, Ohio State’s leading scorer, said postgame vs. Iowa that the conference is very deep but the team “refused to lose.”

“We have that grittiness in us,” Sheldon said.

Head coach Kevin McGuff said after the Iowa game that this team has really gotten better all around.

“With this year’s team, it’s going to be more of a slow, gradual climb,” McGuff said. “I told them we wouldn’t have won this game three weeks ago. We just weren’t playing well. We’ve gotten better with our defense, we’ve gotten better with our rebounding and we still have a ways to go to be who I think we’re capable of being.”

The team all around seems to have come together to win big games down the stretch, which they certainly had a problem with the first two months of the season. 

McMahon, Sheldon, and the Buckeyes return to action Thursday in Columbus, as they take on the Wisconsin Badgers at 6 p.m., streaming on Big Ten Network.