IU Women’s Basketball Finds Lessons In Losses

With close losses to top ranking foes, the Hoosiers are learning pivotal lessons as they near the home stretch.
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Chloe Moore-McNeil (right) picks up USC’s JuJu Watkins (left) on defense.

Photos by Clay Maxfield

NEARLY THREE months into the season, Indiana women’s basketball (12-6, 4-3) has had moments when it seemed capable of making another run toward a Big Ten Conference title while gaining momentum toward the NCAA tournament.

In other moments, however, it looked like it has yet to put together a team.

Against No. 4 USC (17-1, 7-0) on Sunday, January 19, IU represented the former rather than the latter as the team played the Trojans in its fourth closest game this season, with a 73-66 loss.

For IU head coach Teri Moren, the game was decided in the waning moments of the fourth quarter.

“I thought coming down the stretch we had a couple of back-to-back turnovers that were really crucial,” Moren says. “They had 17 points off of our turnovers, and we had keys going into the game for us. The first was to keep them out of transition, keep them off the free throw line, and we didn’t do a very good job.”

Throughout the season, ball security has been the Hoosiers’ biggest hiccup. They average 14.5 turnovers a game. But their losses average nearly 17, while giving up double figures in points off of turnovers.

With games like USC and a 73-62 loss to No. 1 UCLA (18-0, 6-0) on January 4 at home, Moren believes her team continues to learn the importance of every possession but admits they need to convert.

“We’re going to learn down the stretch that we can’t turn the ball over. I look back at UCLA and today, and we’ve just got to get shots. It’s that easy. We got some really good ones, and we just didn’t hit them,” she says.

Senior point guard Chloe Moore-McNeil reiterated the need for attention to detail on offense.

“I feel like at times, we were getting great looks, and at times we went away from what got us those great looks. I think that was really important, especially when you’re playing a great team like USC. You can’t have that kind of slippage,” McNeil says.

Sydney Parrish (33) goes up for a shot in the paint.

Photos by Clay Maxfield

As a team, five Hoosiers average double figures in scoring this season, shooting 45 percent from the field and 36 percent from 3 in conference matchups.

IU now shifts focus to a two-game West Coast tilt starting with Oregon and finishing with Washington on January 27. But the team will need to use its next slate of games to shore up any inefficiencies, with the final three weeks of the season that having it face five out of seven teams in the Top 25 of the country.

Whether it’s the best teams in the nation or the bottom tier squads in the Big Ten, Moren says her team has to approach every game with the same mentality.

“We can’t have a different mindset against UCLA, USC,” Moren says. “The mindset, strategy, being engaged in what we’re trying to do. Night in, night out, it has to be the same. Our room for error is very small, and we’ve got to be so good on so many levels. Whether it’s coverages, actions we’re running offensively, executing, all of it. We’ve got to just keep our head down, keep grinding and realizing that it’s a marathon and not a sprint.”