'We Had to Rally': Indiana Women's Basketball Pulls Past Auburn After Berger Goes Down
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — On Friday night, the Hoosiers pulled past the Auburn Tigers 96-81 in Indiana's first game of the Las Vegas Invitational.
Five Hoosiers scored in double figures led by senior forward Mackenzie Holmes with a 26-point, 12-rebound double-double tying her school record going a perfect 10-for-10 from the floor.
Guards Yarden Garzon, Sydney Parrish, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Sara Scalia all contributed their double-figure scoring nights to give the Hoosiers a 54.1 field goal percentage.
Perhaps the biggest impact, although a negative one, was losing senior guard Grace Berger early in the first quarter.
“A great win for us tonight after losing Grace," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. "We had to rally, all of us. I think we were all out of sorts for a minute when your best player, your leader has to leave the floor the way she did. We were all a little bit out of sorts, but we found our groove."
On the Hoosiers' third offensive possession, Berger went down holding her right knee and sat the bench icing it the rest of the game.
“Grace does so much for us on both sides of the ball so having her go down early in the game was difficult, but I think we knew we had to rally around each other in that moment,” Holmes said.
In the second quarter, the Tigers took a short lead until Garzon got hot scoring nine points and grabbing three boards in the quarter. She ended up with 21 points on the night including four three-pointers.
"Yarden's head is always on a swivel," Holmes said. "She's always looking for the next person to pass to and as talented as she is as a scorer, she's even more talented as a passer."
Auburn also threw some talented scorers at the Hoosiers led by redshirt senior guard Honesty Scott-Grayson and junior guard Aicha Coulibaly who totaled 22 points a piece. Moren and her Hoosiers especially prepped for Coulibaly.
“We knew that she was a freight train,” Moren said. “We didn’t anticipate that they would come out and shoot the way they did, especially early. You could see us changing from a couple zones we have in place back to man-to-man a little bit, so we were trying to throw different looks at them in hopes that we could get them out of rhythm.”
It seemed to work as the Hoosiers were up 51-39 at the half, but Auburn cut the lead to as little as five with 14 seconds left in the third period. Garzon closed the gap as she hit a three-pointer to give Indiana an eight-point cushion.
"Going into the game, composure was one of the key words on the board," Moren said. "We knew they were one, going to be physical, two going to apply a lot of pressure, and so it was going to create a lot of opportunities for us one, to play north and south and two, it was going to force us to run through our passes and be strong with the ball."
For the first time in program history, the Hoosiers pulled out three consecutive victories scoring 90 plus points improving to 6-0 on the season, the second best start under Moren's nine-year tenure.
“The fact that you lose a kid like Grace and still put 96 points on the board, that’s pretty impressive," Moren said. "You know I think it says a lot about our toughness.”
Up next, Indiana will face Memphis on Saturday at 8:45 p.m. in the Hoosiers' final game of the Las Vegas Invitational.
Related stories on Indiana women's basketball
- TERI MOREN AWARDED ESPN COACH OF THE WEEK The Indiana women's basketball program announced head coach Teri Moren was named the ESPN Coach of the Week on Monday after a 5-0 start and a diverse lineup complete with veterans, transfers and freshmen rotations. CLICK HERE
- HOOSIERS MOVE TO NO. 6 IN AP POLL The Hoosiers move up six spots in the AP Top 25 Poll this week following wins over Tennessee, Bowling Green and Quinnipiac. The full list is included inside complete with records. CLICK HERE
- 2022-23 INDIANA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL SCHEDULE Take a look at the full 2022-23 slate of Indiana women's basketball games complete with times and networks. CLICK HERE
