The Hoosiers regrouped at Assembly Hall and took down the blue blood Cardinal.
There’s a pretty reasonable argument that no team in the country was in more dire need of any kind of win than Indiana.
The Hoosiers got off to an extremely uncharacteristic 1-2 start to the season. They looked off in a win over Brown, got stunned at home against Harvard and fell to a Butler program that’s usually a pretty safe double digit victory.
So, how did Teri Moren’s program respond? Dismantling a blue blood.
Indiana earned every single bit of its 79-66 win over Stanford on Sunday. That wording is very intentional. Earned.
Not one Hoosier who saw time on the court didn’t meaningfully contribute to the effort. Chloe Moore-McNeil led the way at point guard, setting up teammates and taking the ball to the rim with aggression and scoring finesse that kept the Cardinal at arm’s length.
Shay Cieki had her breakout in the cream and crimson, scoring 19 points and leading the team in minutes with 38. Yarden Garzon was all over the place, including at center, and shot 4-7 from deep.
Sydney Parrish didn’t eclipse the double figures, but her effort plays on the boards, the defensive end of the court and in transition just kept powering the Hoosiers forward. Lilly Meister hit key free throws in the closing minutes to extend a comfortable lead.
Karoline Striplin made the most of her ten minutes of court time as a screener and keeping the ball moving, Jules LaMendola drew key fouls to keep the Cardinal from getting to comfortable and Henna Sandvik’s intensity on defense and rebounds secured multiple stops.
That’s everyone. It’s a long list, but this was a total team effort from top to bottom. Moren spent most of the opening statement of her postgame press conference giving all the credit to her team. And she was right.
Indiana’s not perfect and has a long way to go. There are more bumps in the road. But this program has figured it out before. It did so today.
And it’ll do it again.