Coming off a two-game losing streak, Indiana women’s basketball found itself in a rock fight on Friday.
The Hoosiers endured a defensive battle against Oregon in Eugene, in their first leg of a two-game west coast swing. And ultimately, the Ducks outlasted IU, 54-47. This gave Indiana its first three-game losing streak since the end of the 2021-22 regular season.
“I got to take responsibility. We didn’t look like a very well-coached team tonight,” IU head coach Teri Moren said after the game. “Every game is important. These guys know it. They were obviously disappointed after Illinois, and certainly USC. But we felt like we were going to come out here and try to get back on track.”
Indiana (12-7, 5-4 Big Ten) led by 10 points in the third quarter, but Oregon (15-5, 6-3) immediately responded with a 10-0 run. The Ducks then swung the game their way in the final five minutes. Indiana went on a long scoring drought, scoring just two points in the game’s last 5:09. And the Hoosiers committed five turnovers in that same stretch, which allowed Oregon to take control.
Both offenses struggled for most of the game. Indiana held a 25-22 halftime lead despite scoring just 0.758 points per possession. IU finished at 0.691, while Oregon put up 0.844. The Hoosiers shot just 38 percent from the field as a team, and they shot 22 percent from 3-point range. The Ducks finished 34 percent from the field and 33 percent from beyond the arc. But they outscored IU 20-11 in the fourth quarter while shooting 46.7 percent from the field, and they closed the game on a 12-2 run.
“I think that with the games that we’ve been losing, just critical errors down the stretch,” senior Karoline Striplin said. “It’s definitely things that we can clean up.”
Striplin was the lone IU player to finish with a positive box score plus-minus on Friday. The Tennessee transfer led the team with 14 points on 7-of-14 shooting, and she was the most consistent source of offense for IU for most of the night. The forward did commit four turnovers with just two assists, though, only further exemplifying IU’s rough night.
Graduate student Chloe Moore-McNeil also finished with four turnovers, contributing to Indiana’s 17 on the night.
Graduate student Sydney Parrish returned to Eugene for the first time since she transferred from Oregon to IU in April 2022. And she came out firing, with five points in the first quarter. She finished with 10 points on a 4-for-7 line, with five rebounds, three assists with one turnovers, two blocks, and two steals.
Junior Yarden Garzon saw her recent shooting struggles continue, finishing 4 for 14 from the field and 0 for 5 from 3-point range. But she grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds to go along with eight points.
The forward has shot just 23.5 percent from the field over the last three games, and she’s gone 1 for 12 from 3-point range. Garzon is Indiana’s leading scorer on the season at 13.4 points per game, but she’s in a major slump right now.
“It’s certainly concerning. We rely on her, and she has not shot the ball very well,” Moren said. “The last time she shot it well was against Iowa (on Jan. 11). So we haven’t seen that Yarden since then. It’s concerning because we do need her to generate some points for us, and right now, she’s having a hard time doing that.”
The Hoosiers are back in action on Monday at Washington, where they’ll look to avoid their first four-game losing streak since Feb. 2019. They’re staying on the west coast over the weekend, and they may have some soul-searching to do after this letdown.
“I think the next 48 hours are going to be interesting, in terms of, not just our film sessions, but also our practices, and the conversations that we’re going to have to have,” Moren said. “We’re going to have to dig deep in our soul and in our hearts and see what we’re made of, because this has been a tough stretch for us.”
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