BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It’s crunch time for the Indiana women’s basketball team.

Indiana is on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, but only just. In ESPN’s latest women’s bracketology released on Tuesday, the Hoosiers were one of the last teams to avoid a play-in game and were predicted to have a No. 10 seed in the tournament.

Quality wins would do the Hoosiers a world of good, and the opportunity to get one presents itself at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday with No. 8 Ohio State coming to Bloomington.

With the Buckeyes at No. 16 in the NCAA NET rankings, it’s a Quad 1 opportunity for the Hoosiers. Indiana only has two Quad 1 wins – a victory over Baylor in November and a win at Iowa in January.

Indiana will have to find a way to keep Ohio State’s prolific offense from generating points. Ohio State ranks 5th in Big Ten contests in scoring at 74.6 points. While the Buckeyes are not a good 3-point shooting team, they don’t emphasize that part of the game. Ohio State takes almost three times as many shots inside the arc, and they convert 48.6% of them.

Ohio State’s defense is opportunistic as they average 11.6 steals in conference games, the best average in the league.

Ohio State began the season 17-0 but slipped recently. The Buckeyes’ unbeaten streak ended with a surprising 62-59 loss at last-place Penn State on Jan. 19, the only Big Ten win the Nittany Lions have.

Unsurprising losses at then-No. 1 UCLA and No. 7 Southern California came later. After those defeats, Ohio State survived overtime wins over Minnesota and Iowa at home.

Indiana has lost two of its last three. The last team Indiana beat with a winning Big Ten record was Nebraska, which it beat 76-60 on Feb. 2.

Indiana doesn’t just have NCAA Tournament considerations in play. The Hoosiers are also trying to avoid having to play on day one of the Big Ten Tournament. No team wants to have to play five games in five days to win the tournament.

Here’s how to watch Indiana’s home game against Ohio State.

How to watch No. 8 Ohio State at Indiana

• Who: Indiana Hoosiers (16-9, 8-6) vs. No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes (22-3, 11-3).
• What: Big Ten regular season game.
• When: Thursday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. ET.
• Where: Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Ind.
• TV: Peacock.
• Radio: WBWB in Bloomington.
• Radio announcer: Austin Render.
• Last game: Indiana defeated Purdue 78-56 at Assembly Hall on Saturday. Ohio State defeated Iowa 86-78 in overtime on Monday in Columbus, Ohio.
• Series history: Ohio State leads 61-26. The Buckeyes won the lone meeting in the 2023-24 season with a 74-69 victory in Columbus. Indiana’s last victory came in the last meeting at Assembly Hall, an 83-59 triumph in 2023.

Statistics

Indiana Hoosiers
• Guards (as officially listed): Yarden Garzon (13.9 ppg, 5 rpg, 3.3 apg), Sydney Parrish (11.9 ppg, 5.7 rpg), Shay Ciezki (10.6 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 2.9 apg), Chloe Moore-McNeil (9.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 4.2 apg), Lexus Bargesser (3.6 ppg), Julianna LaMendola (2.7 ppg, 2.4 rpg), Henna Sandvik (2.1 ppg), Valentyna Kadlecova (1.8 ppg).
• Forwards/centers: Karoline Striplin (10.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg), Lilly Meister (7.7 ppg, 4 rpg), Faith Wiseman (0.3 ppg, 0.8 rpg), Sharnecce Currie-Jelks (0.3 ppg).
No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes
• Guards: Chance Gray (13.4 ppg), Jaloni Cambridge (15.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 4 apg), G-F Taylor Thierry (10.3 ppg, 5.5 rpg), Ava Watson (5.6 ppg), Kennedy Cambridge (4.8 ppg), Madison Greene (4 ppg).
• Forwards/centers: Cotie McMahon (17 ppg, 4.9 rpg), Ajae Petty (9.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg), Elsa Lemmila (4.6 ppg), Eboni Walker (2.4 ppg, 1.9 rpg).

Rankings

• Ohio State is ranked No. 8. The Buckeyes have been ranked all season, never leaving the range between 8-14 in the polls.

Meet the coaches

• Teri Moren, Indiana: Moren is in her 11th season at Indiana and has a record of 242-108 with the Hoosiers. Her overall record in 22 years as a head coach is 441-238. Moren has been Big Ten Coach of the Year twice (2016, 2023). Moren previously coached at Indiana State from 2010-14 and at the University of Indianapolis from 2000-07. Moren was also an assistant coach at Butler (1992-98), Northwestern (1998-2000) and Georgia Tech (2007-10). Moren, a Seymour, Ind. native, played collegiately at Purdue from 1988-92.
• Kevin McGuff, Ohio State: McGuff is in his 12th season at Ohio State and has a 220-109 record with the Buckeyes. McGuff won Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2024. McGuff’s career record is 474-208. He has been a head coach since 2002. He coached Xavier (2022-11) and Washington (2011-13) before he took the job at Ohio State. McGuff graduated from Saint Joseph’s College in Indiana and was an assistant coach at Miami of Ohio (1995-96) and Notre Dame (1996-2002) before he became a head coach.