The Hoosiers’ season comes to a close in the Sweet Sixteen.
Indiana women’s basketball’s season came to an end on Friday with a 79-75 loss to South Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen.
The Hoosiers gave it a valiant effort. What looked like an insurmountable halftime deficit turned into a two point game late in the fourth. Indiana wasn’t just going to let South Carolina move on, making a game of it in the final 20 minutes before ultimately falling just short.
Here’s Three Things:
Shooting
Indiana’s gameplan was pretty clear from the start: shoot 3s.
South Carolina had a considerable size advantage across the board, but especially in the frontcourt. The Hoosiers’ tallest players are each 6’3” while Cardoso is a towering 6’7”. Very few teams in the country can match that size, so buckets in the paint were always going to be a challenge.
But what Indiana had was shooting prowess, four of its starters are 39.1% or better from deep on the year and even Mackenzie Holmes took a couple.
The Hoosiers shot 33 total threes and ended up making 13, good for 39.4%. Sydney Parrish led the way, finishing with a 5-10 clip from range that largely helped power the Hoosiers’ second half run.
A few more fall, maybe this is a different game. But it was a viable course of action.
Talent
Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks have an otherworldly level of talent on the roster.
They’re undefeated on the season for a few reasons, but one of them is overwhelming talent. Nobody in the country can match Cardoso in the paint but if she’s having an off night one of several Gamecocks is able to get them over the finish line.
It’s a well-coached and developed unit by Staley and staff. They know how to maximize it on the floor and get it into Final Four after Final Four.
And it’s worth mentioning that the Hoosiers aren’t exactly a small team. The shortest starter is 5’10” and two of them are 6’3”. There’s not a lot of teams that can make them look like the smaller unit but South Carolina is absolutely one of them.
Cardoso is an obvious matchup problem, but the Gamecocks could match the Hoosiers size 1-4 too. It created issues for a team that can typically leverage it for some easier looks or free-throws, hence additional emphasis on shooting from beyond the arc.
Now what?
Mackenzie Holmes, Sara Scalia and Arielle Wisne have all played their final game in the candystripes.
There’s going to be more on those three but it’s almost hard to say in the moment. Few Hoosiers have had as much impact on an individual program as Holmes, with perhaps only Grace Berger having an argument for equal footing.
She was a strong presence in the paint from the moment she stepped foot on campus and only got better and better, serving as an ambassador for the program across her five years in an Indiana jersey.
To hear her speak about what being a Hoosier has meant to her is as good a recruiting pitch as any Moren could possibly deliver.
Then there’s Scalia, who entered the program known for her ability to get hot from 3 at Minnesota only to keep it going once she got down to Bloomington. Few Hoosiers, across both programs, were better shooters in as many ways.
But she wasn’t just a shooter. She was also one of Indiana’s best options in the fastbreak and became a reliable defender over the course of her first year in town all the way to becoming the No. 2 option this season.
Then Wisne, who’s also been here for years. She’s been key to Indiana’s locker room throughout, just look how her teammates reacted when she surprised them by singing the national anthem on senior night.
There’s more to come for these Hoosiers. Parrish and Chloe Moore-McNeil will be back next year with a year two brewing for talented freshmen guards Lenee Beaumont and Julianna LaMendola. Lexus Bargesser stepped up when needed as a pinch starter, Meister showed defensive prowess and an ability to own the glass, and Yarden Garzon added more to her game.
The Hoosiers will be back, there’s no question.