IU women’s basketball’s first power-conference matchup of the season presented the Hoosiers with a crossroads.
Teri Moren’s team was coming off a rough outing last week against Marshall. IU won that game, but it more so survived its own poor play rather than assert any control over the Thundering Herd.
Indiana followed that with a road battle at Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla. Last year, the team allowed bad performances to spill over into future games, leading to several non-conference losses and a tougher Big Ten slate than the program had seen in several seasons.
The Hoosiers had to respond better than that on Sunday. But within the game, as well, they faced some pivotal turning points where the contest could’ve spiraled away. But IU stayed composed in those big moments and earned a hard-fought 76-72 win at the Donald L. Tucker Center.
“It could’ve gone one of two ways: we could’ve done what we did, or we could have kind of folded, because we’re on the road and not performed at the level that we needed to, to be able to come back in the game,” Moren said after the game. “It tells me that we have a chance with this group to continue to grow and get better.”
IU women’s basketball: Three reasons the Hoosiers beat Florida State, highlights, stats
Indiana (4-0) showed a lot of resilience in Tallahassee.
Florida State (3-2) made a big push in the third quarter, turning an eight-point IU lead into a nine-point advantage the other way — a 20-3 run spanning nearly 5:30 of game time. The Hoosiers kept their cool in the first half, when FSU closed the gap after a hot IU start. But those early runs paled in comparison to the third quarter. Indiana was on the verge of implosion, allowing mistakes to compound into further errors and create too big a deficit to overcome.
Moren called timeout after a layup by 6-foot-6 FSU center Pania Davis to make it 54-45 Seminoles. IU was in a tricky situation with foul trouble, with four on freshman Nevaeh Caffey and three on redshirt sophomore Lenée Beaumont, senior Shay Ciekzi, and junior Edessa Noyan. Indiana’s head coach just wanted to calm her players down and reassure them that the game was still winnable.
“I think right there and then, you make a decision: whether you want to win the game, you’re going to find ways, or you can just throw in the towel. And there was no ounce of quit in our team,” Beaumont said. “I think it just shows the personality and the characteristics of our team that people are going to count us out, and so we have to bring that fight. It has to come from us.”
Indiana came out of that timeout with a 5-0 spurt, and entered the fourth quarter down by six. The Hoosiers kept that momentum going into the final period, taking back the lead less than three minutes in. The game went back and forth for a few minutes after that, but once Ciezki put IU back on top with 5:22 to play, the Seminoles never regained the lead.
Watch: Teri Moren and Lenée Beaumont discuss IU women’s basketball road win over Florida State
Ciezki, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Week, came up big when IU needed her most. She scored 12 points in the fourth quarter, on 5-for-7 shooting, to help propel the Hoosiers to victory. The senior fouled out with 1:48 to play, and IU still needed some big plays to close out the game, but Ciezki made her mark in clutch moments.
But Beaumont was the engine that motored Indiana to this big win. She endured a rough game against Marshall, committing seven turnovers and looking rattled and out of sorts throughout the night. But the redshirt sophomore bounced back in a big way, with a career-high 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
The guard’s individual performance embodied the resilience Indiana showed, as a team, with this win. Moren challenged Beaumont, both publicly and privately, after the Marshall game, and the Lisle, Ill. native internalized the message.
“She expressed some disappointment in the most loving way. Basically, she just said, ‘I need you to be a three-level scorer, and you can’t be hesitant. I’m going to have to take you out if you’re going to be hesitant on the offensive side of things,'” Beaumont said. “She was also very encouraging, (saying) I’m in the gym every day, I don’t miss a day. So there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have the confidence going into games and being ultra-aggressive on that side.”
It’s still early in the season; the long-term impact of this result may not become evident for several weeks, or even months. And Indiana still has concerns, despite the win.
Moren had to go deeper into her bench on Sunday than she had against Marshall or Illinois-Chicago because of foul trouble, and the reserves haven’t given her a lot of production. Sophomore guard Phoenix Stotijn played 19 minutes, shot 0 for 5 with one assist, and fouled out. Noyan scored eight points while fouling out, and she finished a team-worst minus-13 — the only IU player to finish with a negative plus/minus. Jerni Kiaku, in fairness, scored the biggest bucket of the game, a layup over Davis with 15 seconds left.
But IU’s depth looks thin, which is a particular problem with a young and inexperienced starting lineup. The team might have trouble overcoming off-nights from Ciezki, Beaumont, or Zania Socka-Nguemen this year.
The Hoosiers have also had some trouble against press defenses, which Moren’s teams have struggled with for a long time.
But with this performance against Florida State, Indiana proved a point. This group may not be perfect, but it has the right mental makeup to succeed through a long basketball season.
“Still got a lot of work to do, but it feels a whole lot better (than the Marshall win),” Moren said. “It’s weird. You win, and think everything’s great — not great, but you feel good about it, right? This feels a little bit different for us tonight. I think maybe because we had to fight to come back and win. It’s a win, but it feels differently for us. And I think they feel it, which is a really, really good sign.”
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