Ohio State's Madison Greene expected back by end of November, Kevin McGuff says
MINNEAPOLIS – It’s a good time to be Kevin McGuff, apparently.
Monday morning, the Ohio State coach took the podium as the fourth speaker at Big Ten women’s basketball media day inside the Target Center, and McGuff had positive news to share about two integral members of his 2023-24 roster: Madison Greene and Jacy Sheldon. Before he even made those announcements, however, McGuff had a self-deprecating update regarding himself.
“I’m off to a way better start than a year ago,” he said. “A year ago, I went to put my tie on, and I had put on so much weight that my shirt wouldn’t close. I got my tie on this morning and I’m happy to be here.”
McGuff and the Buckeyes shed some metaphorical weight last season by going where no Ohio State team had gone in three decades, reaching the Elite Eight for the first time since the 1992-93 team lost in the national championship game. They accomplished this despite dealing with a season-ending injury to Greene and another that cost Sheldon 23 games.
The good news for Ohio State: Both should be in uniform soon.
“Madison is doing really, really well with her rehab,” McGuff said. “We anticipate her coming back at some point mid-November to late November. We’re certainly going to be somewhat cautious with that to make sure we give her plenty of time to not only be healthy and be ready but be comfortable in coming back as well.”
The 5-8 Greene missed the entirety of 2021-22 due to a knee injury. She played just 12 games last year before suffering another knee injury, which knocked her out for the remainder of the season. Until Greene is back in action, McGuff said a now-healthy Sheldon will be expected to start at the point guard spot.
In 60 career games, Greene has averaged 9.8 points, 3.5 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 1.6 steals for the Buckeyes. She averaged a career-high 13.4 points in 2020-21 before missing the final five games of the year due to injury.
Sheldon, alongside teammate Cotie McMahon, was voted to the Big Ten’s preseason all-conference team. When she was sidelined last year, Rikki Harris handled most of the point guard duties. She returns this season and is expected to also play a significant role for the Buckeyes.
“Won our first 19 games and were ranked as high as second in the country,” McGuff said. “Then Madison gets hurt and Jacy gets hurt, so it really put us in a tough position. One of the players that really stepped up and did a great job was Rikki Harris. We kind of played her at every position, and we had to play her at the point guard position, which is probably not her natural position, but she showed up every day and did whatever she could to help us win.”
The Buckeyes will open the season in Las Vegas against USC on Nov. 6 and will host UCLA on Dec. 18. Both teams will join the Big Ten next year, but McGuff including them on this year’s schedule is coincidental.
“The Las Vegas event, it was a good event against a great opponent to start the season,” he said. “The UCLA thing happened in just the last couple of weeks. We both were kind of desperate for a game, and I have great respect for their program. I know they’re going to be great this year. We wanted to add another quality opponent.”
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Ohio State and UCLA were actually supposed to play in Los Angeles during the 2021-22 season, but the game was canceled due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
“We flew to Los Angeles,” McGuff said. “We were playing UCLA and then going down to play San Diego State, and the game got canceled; so we sat in Westwood for three days and went down to San Diego State and played them. I think it’s a great game. I really enjoy playing great programs like UCLA.”
It will be one of many measuring sticks for an Ohio State program hoping to build on last year’s success and play even deeper into the NCAA Tournament.
“That was a really big step for us last year,” McGuff said. “We had been to the Sweet 16 the year before (in 2022) and lost basically at the buzzer to Texas. That was huge for our program to take that step. We aspire for more, certainly, and it’s hard to do because there’s so many great teams in college basketball. Hopefully we can take that step sometime soon.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Kevin McGuff: Madison Greene expected back by end of November
