No. 14 Indiana Women's Basketball Hosts Northwestern Sunday Afternoon

No. 14 Indiana women's basketball will host Northwestern, which is in the lower portion of the conference standings, at 2 p.m. Sunday. The Hoosiers are coming off their win at Purdue and are projected to be without injured Sydney Parrish for a second game.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — After a week off for Indiana women’s basketball (16-2), the No. 14 Hoosiers return to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall Sunday afternoon to play Northwestern (7-12). With the Purdue win, Indiana is tied with Iowa for first in the Big Ten standings at 7-1. Northwestern is 2-6 in-conference, tied with three other teams for second-to-last.

The Hoosiers are expected to be without starter Sydney Parrish again Sunday. Head coach Teri Moren said Friday that Parrish has been ruled out indefinitely with her foot injury, and the guard’s status is game-to-game. As she did in Sunday's win against Purdue, sophomore Lexus Bargesser is projected to start in place of Parrish. The Hoosiers are coming off their single-game high 15 made threes, and they are 10-0 at home this season.

“One of the things we felt good about with Sara [Scalia] and Chloe [Moore-McNeil] playing the entire game against Purdue, was that we knew we were going to have this week off,” Moren said about monitoring minutes of starters with Parrish out. “So, we could roll the dice there. But we’re going to have to be careful, there’s no doubt, of managing both their minutes, because they do an awful lot for us offensively, but they have huge tasks defensively, also.”

The Wildcats have lost three straight. They are the lowest Big Ten team in the NET rankings — No. 219 — which is about 60 spots away from the next-lowest team in Rutgers. Northwestern’s two conference wins are against Rutgers and Wisconsin. Most Big Ten games have been blowout losses to the teams in the upper half, though the Wildcats hosted Penn State, which is top-30 in the NET, Thursday night and lost by 11 points.

Northwestern junior forward Caileigh Walsh is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 13.1 points per game. Junior guard Melannie Daley averages 12.7 and isn’t projected to start on Sunday — like the team’s past two games. Daley scored 30 points off the bench in that span. Graduate guard Maggie Pina has started the team’s last two games and is Northwestern’s best three-point shooter. Pina has shot 24-for-55, or 43%, on the year.

Indiana has won the past three meetings with Northwestern, going back to the 2020-2021 season. Sunday’s matchup tips-off at 2 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on Big Ten-plus. Fans are encouraged to wear pink clothing for the Breast Cancer Awareness Game.

Related Stories on Indiana Women's Basketball 

• PARRISH OUT INDEFINITELY WITH FOOT INJURY: Moren gave an update Friday on the status of starting guard Sydney Parrish, who did not play in the win last Sunday at Purdue. CLICK HERE
• INDIANA-PURDUE GAME STORY: Indiana was without starting guard Sydney Parrish due to an injury. The Boilermakers had an excellent start, but the Hoosiers came back after the first quarter to win by six with 15 threes. CLICK HERE
• INDIANA-MINNESOTA GAME STORY: Indiana beat Minnesota by 23 points to recover from the Iowa loss. Mackenzie Holmes had a game-high 32 points, as the Hoosiers kept their foothold of second place in the Big Ten. CLICK HERE
• MORE THAN 1 MILLION WATCH INDIANA-IOWA GAME: Indiana women's basketball's contest at No. 3 Iowa Saturday night on FOX was the network's third most-watched women's college basketball game in history. CLICK HERE