IU women dominate wire-to-wire at Illinois

Indiana jumped on Illinois from the opening tip and surged to a 28-8 first quarter lead.

Things never improved for the Fighting Illini.

Led by Ali Patberg’s 26 points on four 3-pointers, No. 7 IU (17-3, 9-1) cruised to a 93-61 rout in Champaign.

“Our kids came out and I thought they looked really comfortable, got into some easy flow early, early easy flow for us offensively,” head coach Teri Moren said.

“Saw a lot of those shots go down for us whether they were attacks at the rim, whether they were kickout 3’s. I don’t want to pick one or two of our players tonight I thought all of them came in and contributed and did something really well throughout. The fact that we shot it as well as we did, 58 percent and 45 from the 3-point line, this coach tonight is finding very few things that I can be upset with, with this group.”

The Hoosiers put four in double figures.  Aleksa Gulbe added 18 points and 7 rebounds, Grace Berger had 13 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists, and freshman Kaitlin Peterson had a career-high 11 points.

NOTABLE

• Indiana won its 13^th consecutive game over Illinois on Wednesday night, a streak that dates back to 2013.
• The Hoosiers went 57.6 percent from the floor (34-of-59) and put up 20 assists, its third-highest single game total of the season.
• IU’s 10 triples on the night set a new season-high beyond-the-arc.
• Patberg moved into sole possession of 9^th place in all-time IU scoring with her season-high 26 points. She passed Jori Davis (10^th, 1587) and Jamie Braun (9^th, 1603) in all-time scoring and now has 1,611 career-points. The Columbus, Ind. native went 9-for-15 from the floor and 4-for-9 from 3-point range.

UP NEXT

The Hoosiers return home on Saturday to host Michigan State in its annual Head to the Hall game where tickets are $1 for all fans. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. ET on B1G+.

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