COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Western Michigan University women's basketball team plays its last non-conference opponent on Monday night.

LAST TIME OUT
In the final home game of 2025, the Broncos fought to the final buzzer in a close 65-58 loss to the Dayton Flyers. A week and a half after setting a new career-high, sophomore guard Alli Harness put up a new personal best to lead the Broncos with 23 points.

WMU trailed by only three points four times in the last seven minutes but weren't able to find the extra push to knock off Dayton. For the seventh game in a row, sophomore guard Kailey Starks poured in double figures for the Brown and Gold while senior guard Alli Carlson led the team on defense with a season-high six rebounds.

NON-CON ON THE ROAD
The Broncos have played the majority of their schedule away from University Arena during non-conference play. Monday night will be the sixth game away from Kalamazoo in 10 non-conference games for WMU. Going into Monday night's game, the Brown and Gold are 2-3 away from University Arena. 

This is the seventh-straight season for the Western Michigan to end non-conference play on the road. The Broncos were initially supposed to end non-conference competition in 2020 at home. But their final home game against Loyola Chicago that season was canceled due to COVID protocol within the Ramblers program.

HARNESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Sophomore guard Alli Harness is having a career December on the floor for WMU. For the second game this month, Harness set a new career-high in scoring against Dayton on Thursday night. Harness had her first 20+ point game against the Flyers, sinking a career-high 23 points powered by a team-high five three-point buckets.

In the month of December, Harness is averaging 12 points a game along with a rebound per game. No other member of the Brown and Gold roster is averaging more points in the final month of 2025 than Harness. But sophomore guard Kailey Starks is also averaging double figures for Western Michigan in December at 10.8 points a game. 

SERIES HISTORY
Monday's game will be the 11th program meeting between WMU and Ohio State. But the two programs have not played each other in over a decade, as most of their meetings came in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Buckeyes hold the current series record at 8-2 and won the last meeting between the programs in 2014 at Value City Arena. The Brown and Gold's last win in the series was all the way back in 1976 at home.

In the 2014 meeting, Western Michigan didn't back down from Ohio State, but the Buckeyes' star backcourt of Kelsey Mitchell and Ameryst Alston was too much to contain, leading their team to an 83-46 victory over the visiting Broncos Sunday at Value City Arena. WMU's record fell to 4-3 and Ohio State improved to 7-4 on the season. All three of Western Michigan's losses that season came on the road against formidable opponents.Two of the losses were against Big Ten foes - Ohio State and Michigan, and the third was against the No. 1 ranked mid-major program Green Bay.

SCOUTING THE BUCKEYES
Ohio State is picking up where they left off the 2024-25 season as one of the Top 25 teams in the nation. Ahead of Monday's AP Poll release, the Buckeyes are currently ranked 21st and have a 10-1 record. Ohio State's only loss so far this year? It came to the number one team in the nation, the UConn Huskies in mid-November where the Buckeyes fell 100-68 at PeoplesBank Arena.

Ohio State is led by the 24th best scorer in the nation, sophomore guard Jaloni Cambridge. Cambridge averages just under 20 points a game at 19.7 points through the Buckeyes first 11 games of the season. OSU has only one other player averaging double figures a game in senior guard Chance Gray. Gray puts up 12.4 points a game while also adding 2.9 assists and 2.2 rebounds.