Well,
Having won six of its last seven games, including an 86-69 thumping of the Iowa Hawkeyes, this felt like the year Teri Moren’s squad could make a run in the Big Ten Tournament. With Ohio State going down to Maryland earlier today, the trail to the Title looked better than ever.
The last time Indiana played Michigan, it made every shot it took in the first quarter to get out to a 36-17 first quarter lead. The two teams combined for 21 points in the first quarter today, with Indiana barely getting out to a three point lead behind Sara Scalia’s 8 points.
Then Indiana started to look like Indiana, outscoring the Wolverines 23-12 in the second quarter to take a 14 point lead into halftime. Mackenzie Holmes, who hurt her knee Sunday against Maryland, played zero minutes, but Indiana had a double digit lead.
Then the third quarter happened and the game got away. The Hoosiers committed seven of their 14 turnovers while scoring just eight points and found themselves holding on to just a three point lead.
Things went downhill from there, and the Hoosiers have now made a second consecutive early exit from the Big Ten Tournament.
Here are Three Observations:
Mackenzie Holmes
Until today, nobody knew whether Indiana would have the services of Mackenzie Holmes, who leads the team with 20.7 points, seven rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game. Listed as questionable in the pregame report, Teri Moren stated at half time that she would prefer not using her today unless she absolutely needed to.
With just over six minutes left in the game, Indiana was down by four and Moren decided that it was time to bring Holmes in. After having spent the majority of the game on the bench, she looked rusty and missed each of her field goal attempts.
Where Indiana really missed her was on defense though, as Laila Phelia scored a career-high 30 points without hitting a single shot from 3-point range. Michigan recognized that Indiana lacked its best rebounder and interior defender and attacked accordingly.
Big picture, it’s probably better that she gets an extra day off. If she was benched for so long today, she was not likely to be at 100% tomorrow. Indiana needs her healthy to be at its best and the NCAA Tournament means more than today’s loss.
Sydney Parrish
It’ll be overshadowed in the grand scheme of things, but Sydney Parrish’s effort down the stretch is one reason to feel optimistic about these Hoosiers going forward.
In the first half, Sara Scalia and Chloe Moore-McNeil dominated, scoring 11 and seven points respectively while Moren tried to go small in the absence of her star center. The shooting went cold in the second half for everyone except for Parrish, who hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored eight of her 13 points.
Had Indiana won, I was fully prepared to write up an article about Indiana’s depth, as three players reached double digits today. But it didn’t seem like the Hoosiers could get enough players playing well at the same time, costing Indiana the momentum and the game.
When things go South, it’s good to have a player like Parrish fighting through an injury to keep Indiana in a game that was rapidly getting out of hand.
Momentum
After a disappointing finish in last year’s Big Ten Tournament, the biggest thing Indiana could have done tonight was to win in convincing passion to prove that was peaking at the right time.
For the first 20 minutes, Indiana appeared to be doing so, even without Mackenzie Holmes. And then Sara Scalia and Chloe Moore-McNeil went cold while Laila Phelia shredded the Hoosier defense for 20 second half points.
Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, like Laila Phelia tonight. For now, you have to hope that’s the case and that Indiana still has enough gas in the tank to make the run in March that we all know they’re capable of.
That doesn’t erase the fact that it stings to see Indiana blow a 17-point second half lead to lose by double digits to a bubble team. Especially not in the context of Indiana’s recent postseason struggles.