Indiana Women's Basketball Loses First Game of Season to Michigan State
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Thursday, the No. 4-ranked Hoosiers snapped the hope of an undefeated season as they fell 83-78 to the Michigan State Spartans on the road.
All the statistics were pretty close across both teams, and Indiana even shot its second best clip from the floor this season at 58.5 percent, but it would be turnovers and fouls that killed the Hoosiers.
"They had 28 points off our turnovers," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. "That's the storyline right there."
On the bright side, senior forward Mackenzie Holmes set a new career-high with 32 points. She added 12 rebounds for her first 30/10 double-double of her career and first for the team since Jill Chapman achieved one in her 1999-2002 career. Remember, Holmes had never played in the Breslin Center before Thursday.
She humbly admitted it was her night but was disappointed with the Hoosiers' mistakes that led to 21 turnovers and 21 personal fouls compared to the Spartans' 15 turnovers and 17 personal fouls.
"I don't know if it was so much the defense as it was us making some careless passes down the stretch," Holmes said. "We made some passes cross court when they were pressing us that we knew weren't going to get through, which we worked on in practice, so it was kind of disappointing to have that happen in the game."
In another bright spot, three other Hoosiers scored in double figures including freshman guard Yarden Garzon with 17 followed by junior guards Chloe Moore-McNeil's 11 and Sydney Parrish's 10.
"I thought Mackenzie was terrific," Moren said. "I thought Yarden was excellent. Chloe did I thought a decent job. Syd was aggressive, which we needed her to be. There were some really good moments."
Parrish eventually fouled out as her team attempted to shut down Michigan State's leading scorer graduate student guard Kamaria McDaniel, who posted 24 points. Moren said her team allowed McDaniel to get too comfortable. Plus, Indiana knew the press was coming and didn't handle it well.
"I didn't think we did a good enough job really getting the ball to the middle and really trying to kick it out to drives whether that's drives to extra passes or whether that's drives to put the ball inside to Mack and allow Mack to work in the low block," Moren said.
Moren added she wants to see more out of her tallest Hoosier graduate student forward Alyssa Geary at 6'4" and senior guard Sara Scalia. Scalia was off missing all three triples while Geary only tallied one rebound.
"This is where all the stakes are high right now and you got to show up," Moren said. "This is the league and night in and night out, if you don't show up ready to play, it's going to be hard to win games."
In the first quarter, Indiana was tied up with Michigan State at 10 a piece but with five minutes left in the frame, the Spartans went on an 8-0 run to get a 7-point lead. Holmes then cut the lead to four points off of an and-1 play.
Michigan State led by as much as nine points in the second quarter before the Hoosiers called a timeout to readjust and jumpstart a 6-0 run for a 23-21 close score. The rest of the half was tight, but the Spartans still left the court with a 2-point advantage.
"Disappointed," Moren said. "I felt like we dug ourselves a little hole there in the first half and then fought our way back to pull within striking distance at half time."
Things seemed to look up for Indiana in the third frame as the Hoosiers hit 5-of-7 shots for an 11-3 run as Garzon completed the run with an and-1 play.
Garzon continued her momentum into the fourth quarter with two consecutive shots in the paint while Holmes tied it up after another and-1.
Holmes made her best effort to give Indiana the edge as she racked up nine points in the fourth, but Michigan State had too hot of hands and went on a 7-0 run with over four minutes to play.
"We tried to do some things differently defensively and change it up defensively, and we just had some really tough luck whether the ball got tipped or it was on the floor and we couldn't get to it," Moren said.
Garzon hit her signature triple with just under 30 seconds left in regulation, but the Spartans sealed their win in the bonus handing Indiana its first loss of the season.
"I felt like we couldn't get a stop and or we fouled," Moren said. "I thought that was sort of the theme of the game."
Up next, the Hoosiers will return home to face the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Sunday, New Year's Day at 1 p.m. ET.
"We play Nebraska here in a couple days, so we don't have much time to feel sorry four ourselves," Holmes said. "We're just going to get back in the gym, figure out what went wrong and clean that up."
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