Kevin McGuff already making an impact at Ohio State

One of the first names brought to Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith's attention after Jim Foster had been fired as women's basketball coach was Washington's Kevin McGuff.

Smith decided to go after some bigger names like Dawn Staley and Gail Goestenkors first.

For one reason or another both were eliminated from the picture and it looked like Smith would have to go after some of his lower level choices. But Smith came to the realization that he could get McGuff and by all accounts he is thrilled that he did.

McGuff was a winner as an assistant at Notre Dame and as head coach at Xavier and Washington. He has a career record of 255-99 and has never missed the postseason.

McGuff's first move at Ohio State was to bring in Joy Cheek of Duke as his chief recruiter. Cheek is among the best in the business and it was no easy task to pry her from Duke. McGuff got it done.

The State of Ohio has many of the top players in the class of 2014 and many of them were not considering Ohio State when Foster was at the helm. Now Ohio State is involved with virtually all of them and McGuff has been on the job for little more than a month. They are also involved with players nationally.

He still has a key hire to make on his staff and has gotten over 100 inquiries about the job.

Ohio State brings back 3 starters from a team that did not make the postseason in 2012-13. If past is prologue, McGuff will coach them up to an NCAA bid.

For more on how McGuff got to Ohio State, check out our storystream.