With 4-1 Big Ten start, IU women’s basketball on track for another NCAA tournament appearance
Indiana women’s basketball claimed an impressive 74-67 win at Iowa on Sunday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena and the Hoosiers are on track for another NCAA tournament appearance under Teri Moren.
Moren, the winningest coach in IU women’s basketball history, has made the last five NCAA tournaments that have been held dating back to 2019.
Before she arrived in 2014, Indiana had reached the NCAA tournament four times. Under Moren, the Hoosiers have participated in March Madness six times. At 12-4 and 4-1 in Big Ten play, Indiana currently looks the part of an NCAA tournament team.
Indiana has rebounded from early season losses against Harvard and Butler and has now won eight of its last nine games after a loss to North Carolina in the Battle 4 Atlantis on Nov. 25.
The Hoosiers’ only loss in their last nine games came against No. 1 UCLA on Jan. 4 in Bloomington.
Sunday’s win at Iowa significantly boosted Indiana’s NCAA tournament resume. It was the program’s second Quad 1 victory and moved the Hoosiers to No. 37 in the NET rankings. Indiana is 2-2 in Quad 1 games and 3-1 in Quad 2.
“We’re happy to get out of here with a win,” Moren said Sunday. “Really pleased with my group, how hard they played. This is a difficult league, as you all know.”
After losing Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia in the offseason to graduation, a step back was expected for the Hoosiers this season.
Holmes is IU’s all-time leading scorer and arguably the best player to ever wear the uniform. Scalia was one of the best shooters in the country last season and is now playing professionally in Italy.
Early in the season, Indiana showed that it would undergo growing pains as it mixed in transfer portal additions Shay Ciezki and Karoline Striplin with the returning nucleus of Yarden Garzon, Chloe Moore-McNeil, Sydney Parrish, Lilly Meister and Lexus Bargesser.
The Hoosiers were stunned 72-68 in overtime against Harvard on Nov. 7 at Assembly Hall. And just six days later, Indiana could only muster 46 points in a 10-point loss to Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
A few weeks later, Indiana went 2-1 at Battle 4 Atlantis but ended the event on a sour note by losing 69-39 to North Carolina in the championship game.
Since that loss, the Hoosiers have moved up to a No. 8 seed in Charlie Creme’s latest Bracketology on ESPN. And that projection was made before Sunday’s win in Iowa City.
As Indiana’s health has improved in recent weeks – Parrish (knee injury) returned from a five-game absence on Dec. 22 – the Hoosiers are having different players step up as they stack wins away from Assembly Hall. Indiana is currently 3-0 in conference road games.
Last Wednesday in Evanston, Ciezki, who transferred from Penn State, scored 20 points in 36 minutes to help Indiana escape with a 68-64 win.
On Sunday in Iowa, Garzon delivered an impressive shooting display to push the Hoosiers past the Hawkeyes. Garzon, who is shooting 40.7 percent on 3s this season, knocked down all five of her triples against Iowa and finished with 21 points in the win.
The road, however, gets more difficult for Indiana in a Big Ten that currently has 13 teams projected to make the NCAA tournament, according to Creme’s most recent projection.
This week, the Hoosiers host Illinois on Thursday before USC and star JuJu Watkins come to town on Sunday for a noon ET tip.
As well as Indiana has played recently, it was clear Moren still believes there’s plenty of room for growth for her group. Indiana was beaten on the glass by Iowa on Sunday and that area is a clear focus for improvement moving forward.
“Our bugaboo right now is the rebounding,” Moren said. “This is the third game, fourth game that we’ve gotten out rebounded. We’ve gotta fix that.”
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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