Tayler Hill steps up, but Buckeyes reel

By her own high standards, Tayler Hill was floundering during her visit home a year ago, battling to regain her confidence during a rugged Big Ten season.

She bounced back. Now she's trying to help her team do the same.

Hill, the highest scorer in Minnesota high school girls' basketball history, returns to Minneapolis with the Ohio State Buckeyes on Sunday as an assured, mature shooting guard, all the better for having survived a bumpy-but-promising freshman year.

"Last year, I hit a wall as a freshman. The conference season was rough," said Hill, a two-time Star Tribune Metro Player of the Year at Minneapolis South. "It happens to a lot of players. I just got hesitant, too worried about making a mistake."

A nine-game slump, when her shooting deserted her (9-for-45 from the field, 2-for-18 from three-point range in that span) and turnovers spiked, was just beginning to turn around when Hill and the Buckeyes arrived to face the Gophers for the first time since she turned down her hometown school. Energized by her surroundings -- and several dozen noisy friends and family members in the Williams Arena crowd -- Hill regained the aggressiveness that made her so dangerous. She went to the free-throw line a season-high 10 times, scored 13 points, and helped Ohio State rally from an eight-point deficit for a 64-59 victory.

"I had a lot of support there in Minnesota. Even people rooting for the Gophers were cheering for me," Hill said.

The Buckeyes went on to capture their sixth consecutive Big Ten championship, with Hill chipping in 14 points in both the semifinal and championship game, then earned a No. 2 seed to the NCAA tournament. But Ohio State was shocked by Mississippi State in the second round. It taught the freshman guard about expectations in Columbus: Conference titles were not enough.

Which makes this season all the more puzzling. Ohio State entered the season with all five starters back and was ranked seventh in the first AP poll. The Buckeyes won their first seven games, including an 11-point thrashing of 11th-ranked Oklahoma, and appeared to be the juggernaut the league feared.

But a stumble in Syracuse and a dismal 31-point rout at the hands of top-rated UConn has turned the Buckeyes' season around.

Ohio State has endured three three-game losing streaks already, lost twice to both Michigan and Northwestern -- the Wildcats had lost 19 in a row to the Buckeyes before this season -- and shuffles into Minneapolis in seventh place at 14-9 and 5-6, four games behind first-place Michigan State and with virtually no shot at the regular-season title.

Hill declined to specify the Buckeyes' problems but said they have been addressed and, she hoped, corrected.

"We're going to be fine. We've just got some things we're working through internally," she said. "It all has to do with team chemistry. We're doing everything we can to change things."

"It was fun," senior center Jantel Lavender told the Columbus Dispatch. "Tayler getting those steals, they built our momentum."

About the only skill Hill hasn't mastered with the Buckeyes is finding enough tickets for her friends and family.

"I got as many as I could from my teammates, but I've got at least 50-plus people coming" to Sunday's game against the Gophers, Hill said. "There's a lot of people to see."