After a double-overtime victory inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Senior Day, IU women’s basketball will hit the road and look to avoid a letdown in its final regular-season game.
When IU visits Illinois for a 1 p.m. tipoff Saturday, the Hoosiers hope to avoid the result they suffered in their last road game.
A loss to last-place Nebraska last Sunday temporarily put a damper on IU’s NCAA Tournament hopes, but the thrilling victory against Iowa on Wednesday has the Hoosiers at 9-6 in the Big Ten and fully confident in their abilities to finish the season strong.
“We know what we’re fighting for,” senior guard Karlee McBride said after Wednesday’s win. “It is mental, but then again we just have to go out there and do what we know, play how we play and play for each other.”
McBride has led an uptick in IU’s production from the 3-point line recently by making 11 of 25 from deep in her past four games. Against Iowa, IU made 11 shots from beyond the arc as a team. Illinois has just a 30.3 percent mark from 3 as a team, so winning the shooting battle could be key to IU winning the game.
IU forced 19 turnovers Wednesday. That effort was good enough to push the Hoosiers into first place in the Big Ten in turnover margin with an average of plus 3.8 turnovers per game. IU ran a mix of zone and man defense against Iowa, which was not a departure from Moren’s season-long trend of being willing to switch defensive looks within each game.
“I thought our zone tonight was good to us for a time,” Moren said after beating Iowa. “But then down the stretch we felt like we had to go back to man.”
Senior forward Jenn Anderson made a season-high 10 field goals Wednesday and raised her season scoring average to 9.3 points per game. Defensively, she will be tasked with Illinois sophomore forward and leading scorer Alex Witting, who does the bulk of her damage down low.
Witting averages 14.9 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, but her 6-foot-1 frame could provide the 6-foot-3 Anderson with an advantageous matchup when IU has the ball. Illinois has no one listed taller than 6-foot-2 on its roster, so expect Moren to emphasize feeding the ball to the post.
Purdue and Michigan State, along with IU, have six Big Ten losses and are battling for the coveted fourth spot in the conference standings that would ensure a double bye through the first two rounds of next week’s Big Ten Tournament that will be played in Indianapolis.
A win for IU against Illinois would guarantee at least a fifth-place finish in the conference, and Moren isn’t worried about needing other teams to lose.
Moren said her squad’s resilience, both throughout the season and in the marathon victory over Iowa, shows what the Hoosiers are capable of.
“Although we’ve had some peaks and valleys, we’re one win away from having a 20-win season,” Moren said. “I don’t know that there are many coaches out there that would not want to have that.”
