Offense And Defense On-Point As Indiana Routs Rutgers 81-60

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana’s women’s basketball team demonstrated Thursday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall that it can thrive regardless of the tenor of the game.

A gritty defensive slog? The Hoosiers did fine with that in the first half.

A high-scoring up-tempo shootout? The Hoosiers shot lights out in the second half.

Indiana dominated Rutgers 81-60 as the Hoosiers showed the best sides of their offensive and defensive personalities against the overmatched Scarlet Knights to win their third straight game.

Indiana held Rutgers to 28.6% shooting in the first half. Then the Hoosiers drained 66.7% of their second half shots. Indiana made 11 of their 15 3-pointers in the second half.

“Fifteen threes on the game is a lot of threes. So you know, that gives us confidence going into the stretch (of two road games to come). That’ll be good for us,” said Sydney Parrish, who led Indiana with 22 points.

Indiana (15-7, 7-4) was already ahead by 11 at halftime, but a third-quarter outburst by the Hoosiers provided fireworks missing from the first half.

The Hoosiers shot 80% in the third quarter, including 10 of 13 from 3-point range. Shay Ciezki and Parrish made three 3-pointers each in the period. Indiana outscored Rutgers 36-19 in the third period and led by 28 after the onslaught.

Indiana was just 4 of 12 from beyond the arc in the first half, but there was no hesitation to fire away when open.

“It was pretty simple. The coaches said we're going to make shots. They're going to fall eventually. We just got to make sure that we have our confidence and we just keep shooting,” Ciezki explained.

That third quarter explosion didn’t seem likely after a defensive-minded first half.

Indiana’s defensive clampdown from the start was impressive. Rutgers missed five of its first six shots – made a couple in a row – and then really went into a tailspin.

The Scarlet Knights (9-14, 1-11) made just one bucket from the 2:47 mark in the first quarter to the 3:47 mark of the second. It was a 1 of 13 stretch for Rutgers.

Indiana needed to limit Rutgers’ scoring to that degree. The Hoosiers weren’t scoring, either.

The Hoosiers took an early 12-3 lead thanks to Rutgers’ early scoring woes, but the Scarlet Knights were adept stoppers, too. Indiana went without a bucket from the 3:53 mark of the first quarter to the 6:19 mark of the second.

Indiana finally got unwound in the latter half of the second quarter. The Hoosiers made six of their last nine shots of the half with five different Hoosiers getting in on the act. Indiana led 32-21 at halftime.

“We talk to them all the time about controlling the controllables and you can control so much on that side of the ball. It's just having the focus. Understanding the strategy, game planning and not losing your focus,” Indiana coach Teri Moren said.

Rutgers tried to disrupt Indiana with pressure defense in the second half, but the inability to make a shot undermined that strategy.

Indiana got into a rhythm with transition buckets and didn’t relinquish that momentum with their hot shooting half.

“It was just great to watch Syd, Shay, all of them, share the ball the way they did and see that thing go in, just spacing the floor,” Moren said.

In addition to Parrish’s team-high 22 points, Ciezki had 16 points, Yarden Garzon had 14 points and Chloe Moore-McNeil had 12 points.

Indiana has a pivotal game at Minnesota on Sunday and are a game ahead of the Golden Gophers. After that, Indiana plays at Michigan Wednesday. The Wolverines are also a game behind the Hoosiers.

Indiana is in the top nine of the Big Ten, meaning the Hoosiers would avoid having to play five games in five days at the Big Ten Tournament.

Wins provide distance to the 10th place teams and provide a tiebreaker edge. Losses would drag the Hoosiers into that fight to avoid day one in the Big Ten Tournament, and the Hoosiers wouldn’t have tiebreakers in their favor.

It’s an important stretch, but Indiana is playing well going into it.

“I feel good that we've won our last three games, right? And I think our kids feel good that they've won their last three games. I've liked how we've gone about winning those games,” Moren said.

“This is a very determined group, and they want to get things right. So we're going to have to be as good as we've been the last two games defensively,” Moren said. “And as elementary and simple as it sounds, we’ve got to be able to hit shots.”

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