Teri Moren said it best in her postgame press conference — a lot of things didn’t go Indiana’s way on Saturday.
No. 14 IU women’s basketball went into Carver-Hawkeye Arena for its biggest game of the season against No. 3 Iowa, and left humbled. The Hoosiers were completely dismantled by the Hawkeyes, and are left to pick up the pieces from the disappointing performance.
“There were a lot of things that just didn’t go our way. And some nights, you have nights like that,” Moren said after the game. “We’ll have to regroup and get back to Bloomington and get ready for a good Minnesota team.”
Here are a few of the main things that went awry in Iowa City.
3-point and free-throw shooting
For the Hoosiers to be at their most lethal, they have to hit outside shots.
And that simply did not happen on Saturday. Not often enough. Indiana went 5 for 20 from 3-point range in Iowa City, its fourth-lowest 3-point percentage in a single game this season. For the Hoosiers to win this season while shooting that poorly, they’ve needed one of Mackenzie Holmes’ biggest games of the season (at Rutgers) and the team’s best defensive performance of the season (Stetson).
Sydney Parrish, Sara Scalia, and Chloe Moore-McNeil combined to shoot 2 for 12 from long range on Saturday. That can’t happen, even if Yarden Garzon (3 for 7) gets rolling.
The free-throw line wasn’t much kinder to the Hoosiers, as they shot just 6 for 11 at the stripe. That’s tied for their fourth-fewest free-throw attempts in a game this season, and they haven’t attempted that few since November. And it was mostly Holmes — Parrish was the only other player who got to the line. And the graduate student, who shoots 68.2 percent on free throws this season, went 4 for 9 Saturday.
“We just weren’t hitting shots,” Moren said. “I did think there were a couple moments where we looked not as organized offensively as we like to look. We were going off script, just sort of 1 on 1. Mack got a lot of good shots tonight around the rim. Some of them didn’t go in, struggled from the free-throw line when we got her there.”
Limiting Iowa’s secondary options
Indiana, all things considered, did a decent job against Caitlin Clark. There’s a reason she’s become such a star in women’s college basketball.
She was scoring 31 points per game going into Saturday, so IU actually held her under her season average despite her 30-point night. And while she got hot from 3-point range after the first quarter, holding Clark to 6 for 16 shooting from beyond the arc could be a small victory.
The way to beat Iowa is to prevent its secondary options around Clark from doing a lot of damage, and that’s where IU struggled.
Yes, Holmes won the battle inside, as Iowa’s second-leading scorer on the season Hannah Stuelke wasn’t really a factor in the game. But Molly Davis took over the game for a few stretches and finished with 18 points on a 7-for-10 clip. That was just as damaging as Clark’s outburst.
IU left Gabbie Marshall wide open from 3-point range too often, and she made them pay by shooting 4 for 7. Kate Martin chipped in 10 points as well. Allowing three Hawkeyes other than Clark to score in double-figures is a recipe for disaster.
“Certainly didn’t do what we needed to do on, not Cait, but the rest of those guys. Molly Davis, to have 18 points. Things like that,” Moren said “You know that Cait’s probably going to get her average, but you don’t want to let those other guys have big nights. And unfortunately, we let too many of them have their way with us.”
Shot creation
Indiana missed Grace Berger in this game more than it has in any other game this season.
There were so many times in this game when Iowa went on a run and the crowd came alive, and Berger would’ve been the player to make a play and silence the arena. It’s not that other IU players don’t have the “clutch gene,” but Berger was just such a skilled playmaker and scorer that it came more naturally to her. IU hasn’t needed it in a lot of games so far this year, but it was noticeable on Saturday.
Moore-McNeil, earlier in the game, was able to set things up for the Hoosiers. She had three assists in each half, but also had nine points at halftime. But she wasn’t able to get into the lane as effectively in the second half, and Indiana missed that scoring impact. When she’s playing aggressively the way she has over the last few weeks, it sets up so much for the rest of the team.
And aside from her, Indiana doesn’t really have anyone who can easily create looks for herself and teammates in 1-on-1 situations.
IU clearly hoped Garzon would continue developing into that sort of player this season. The Israeli’s assists are slightly up and her turnovers are slightly down, despite her one assist and six turnovers on Saturday. But her impact has been very limited in recent games as she’s hit a scoring lull, and she just hasn’t been the sort of distributor IU needs.
“She has not looked comfortable. She has struggled. We need her. And I don’t have an answer. She’s had some other things that have been going on,” Moren said, referring to the ongoing conflict in Israel, “but we’ve got to get her back on track.”
