OSU focusing on Big Ten, not seeding

Those who make a living speculating about the Division I women’s basketball tournament brackets would be disappointed to know that Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff and his players might as well have shuttered themselves in a cellar from all the scuttlebutt.

The Buckeyes have been

a hot topic since they defeated Maryland 98-87 in their next-to-last regular-season game and then dispatched Rutgers to gain a share of the Big Ten championship and No. 1 seed in the conference tournament.

Charlie Creme of ESPN has Ohio State ( 25- 5), which plays Northwestern (20-10) at noon today in a Big Ten quarterfinal in Indianapolis, as a potential No. 4 national seed. The reward would be the Buckeyes hosting a subregional at St. John Arena. When they hosted subregionals in 2009, ’ 11 and ’ 16, they advanced to the Sweet 16.

McGuff and company want to talk only about the first game of the conference tournament. Ohio State has won 11 straight games and slowly is rounding into the form the coach envisioned in preseason.

“That would be a great opportunity to play in front of our fans here in Columbus and we’re hopeful for that, but at the end of the day we can’t control where they are going to seed us or where we are going to play," McGuff said Wednesday. “I haven’t looked at it much. I’ll probably take a look at it after the Big Ten tournament. That stuff, if you look at it, can drive you crazy. You can look at RPI and strength of schedule until you are blue in the face, but you can only control how you play."

At least three times during the news conference McGuff said the Buckeyes “must be the best version of ourselves" and block out outside noise. Guard Kelsey Mitchell said winning a Big Ten championship would be earned and not assigned such as a ranking or a seeding on a bracket sheet.

“Who wants to go home?" she said. “Nobody wants to go home. No one in the Big Ten wants to go home."

Mitchell would welcome a chance to play in the NCAA

Big Ten tournament quarterfinal

Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indianapolis Big Ten Network WBNS-AM (1460)

Ohio State 25-5; Northwestern 20-10

Northwestern advanced Thursday with a 78-73 victory over Iowa in which Nia Coffey tied the conference tournament record with 15 field goals in scoring 34 points. … Northwestern's Ashley Deary holds the Big Ten career record for steals with 427. She has 116 this season. … The Buckeyes defeated the Wildcats 94-87 on Jan. 3 in Evanston when Kelsey Mitchell scored 33 points. Coffey had 22. … Ohio State has not lost its conference

tournament on campus but wouldn’t be crushed packing G Kelsey Mitchell, 5-8, Jr., 23.4 G Sierra Calhoun, 6-0, So., 10.1 G Kiara Lewis, 5-8, Fr., 7.2 F Tori McCoy, 6-3, Fr., 7.8 F Shayla Cooper, 6-2, Sr., 10.3

G Harper, 5-8, Jr., 8.2; F Hart, 6-3, Jr., 4.5; G Doss, 5-7, Jr., 5.5; F Waterman, 6-2, So., 3.0. G Ashley Deary, 5-4, Sr., 10.5 F Nia Coffey, 6-1, Sr., 20.0 F Lauren Douglas, 6-2, Sr., 8.7 F Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah, 6-2, So., 1.6 G Christen Inman, 5-10, Sr., 11.7

G Lydia Rohde, 5-10, Jr., 4.7; F/C Abi Scheid, 6-2, Fr., 5.0; G Amber Jamison, 6-0, So., 5.0. her bags. “That’s definitely a good thing ( to aim at)," she said. “I actually, honestly, don’t care where we play. If we have to go away, I’m fine with it. If we play here, I’m fine with that, too."

A 94-75 loss at Michigan State on Jan. 10 sobered the players as to how far they had to go, Mitchell said.

“After the Michigan State loss practices got better because players knew what they had to do," she said. “It wasn’t so much physical as mental. It’s attitude. We have to stay focused on the task at hand."

Guard Linnae Harper wants to bring a Big Ten tournament championship back to Ohio State for the first time since 2011.

“It’s all about attention to detail and who wants it more," she said. “We have every tool to win the Big Ten championship. Honestly, we’re focusing on Indy and winning that championship."