Indiana women’s basketball falls in overtime to Harvard in “perplexing” performance
After Monday’s season-opening win against Brown, Teri Moren wasn’t satisfied with her team’s performance.
Despite the win, the game highlighted specific problems that captured her attention. Turnovers and poor defense were chief among the issues. With a quick turnaround before Thursday’s game against Harvard, Moren knew her team needed to make strides quickly.
Moren’s concerns were correct. On Thursday night, 72 hours later, Indiana suffered its first loss in upset fashion against Harvard, 72-68, in overtime at Assembly Hall.
From the start, Indiana was playing catchup against the Crimson.
Turnovers were an issue in the first quarter and throughout the game. The Hoosiers failed to find any offensive rhythm as Harvard emerged as the faster, more aggressive team. Indiana turned over the ball 11 times in the first ten minutes, resulting in more turnovers than shots attempted (seven) at the end of the first quarter.
From the opening tip, Indiana could not handle Harvard’s full-court press.
“Their pressure was no surprise,” Chloe Moore-McNeil said postgame. “Coming in, we knew they were going to press us off misses, off makes, even in the half-court, you know, gambling a little bit. I think that’s just the hardest part, just knowing we were supposed to be prepared for that, and we didn’t show up for it.”
Even with the Hoosiers’ much better second quarter, which saw them bring the game within one possession by halftime, Indiana struggled to handle the pressure.
The Crimson’s pressure rattled Indiana throughout the contest and Harvard never went away. Even when Indiana took the lead in the third quarter, Harvard pestered the Hoosier offense into mistake after mistake.
The Ivy League opponent scored 32 points off Indiana’s turnovers, which was the difference in the game.
Beyond their inability to control the ball, the Hoosiers scored zero fastbreak points, were outscored 28-24 in the paint and shot just 3-for-18 on 3s. Indiana turned the ball over 27 times, the second-highest total for the program in a game under Moren’s leadership.
“Is it perplexing? Yeah,” Moren said. “It’s perplexing to me how we are a veteran team… and how we can have those moments. We had them against Brown, where we entered the ball, and it went out of our hands on just a simple entry to the wing. Yarden throws it ahead to Jules, and it somehow goes out of bounds. We dribble it off our leg a couple of times. Those are uncharacteristic of us. And I get it; that’s not what we normally look like. We haven’t looked like that, and so I don’t; I’m more perplexed by it than I am worried.”
It’s only the second game of the season, but this team is currently well below the standard it has set previously under Moren.
Roles have yet to be fully established while this team tries to figure out how it wants to play. The season is still young, having only played two games, but like Moren said after the season opener, these issues will have to be resolved within that locker room.
“I always say, you know, one game, although it’s super disappointed they can’t, they can’t break our heart, where we can’t return here, or take tomorrow off on Saturday and get back to work,” Moren said. “That’s, that’s, you know, all that we know around here…I don’t think anybody has hit the panic button quite yet…This is not the team of last year.
“There are new pieces that we’re trying. And they’re all still trying to figure out how that all works together. It may not happen as early as our fans and maybe as we would like, how quickly, you know, as we would like, but we have to stick to the process of just trying to improve a little bit more every day.”
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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