INDIANAPOLIS — With IU’s NCAA Tournament hopes riding on the final result, Friday’s game was one the Hoosiers could ill afford to lose.
It was one of the best starts imaginable. IU played solid defense, clean offense and had momentum. Against a team of Purdue Boilermakers playing its second game in as many days, the Hoosiers couldn’t have asked for much more. Everything clicked for IU until, all of a sudden, it didn’t.
After leading by 17 points, IU couldn’t hold on in the second half and fell out of the Big Ten Tournament with a 66-60 loss to Purdue at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Junior guard Tyra Buss said there was a stark change in the way IU played after halftime.
“I think we just were careless with the ball in the second half, especially the start of the third quarter,” Buss said. “We just didn’t come out with the energy we had in the first half.”
During the week, IU Coach Teri Moren said her team was getting up a lot of shots in order to avoid an offensive funk.
The shooting percentage on the road for IU hasn’t been anything to brag about lately. In the early going Friday, it was. At halftime, the Hoosiers were shooting 50 percent both overall and from 3-point range.
IU’s big three of Buss, junior forward Amanda Cahill and senior guard Alexis Gassion paced the Hoosiers early on.
Buss had four first-half 3-pointers as part of her 14 first-half points. The Hoosiers led by 15 at the intermission, and it looked like nothing was going to stop this team from moving onto the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
Purdue, on the other hand, wasn’t going down without a fight. Its fight showed in the second half, and the Boilermakers senior guard Ashley Morrissette said her coach Sharon Versyp was the key to sparking the team.
“Coach came during halftime, and she gave us a choice: Go home or come out and win or come out, have some pride on defense,” Morrissette said. ”Purdue is known for defense. In that first half we had very little. So I think that’s a big reason everybody responded.”
Once the second half started, it was a different story. The shots that were once falling for IU were not. The shots that weren’t falling for Purdue started to fall. On the defensive end, Purdue switched one through four and caused IU some trouble. The Hoosiers couldn’t get into the lane and into the post for senior forward Jenn Anderson. That disrupted the flow IU had in the first half.
Buss’ first half was impressive, but her second half was not. She scored just two points in the second 20 minutes, and that bucket came with 2:11 left in the game.
Once things started going awry, Moren said the game plan was to continue to attack and get to the free throw line.
That plan didn’t work either. Because of Purdue’s change in game plan, IU was suddenly running into issues. IU went more than seven minutes scoreless in the third quarter while Purdue ripped off a 16-2 run.
“We just didn’t hit shots. We really didn’t. We had great looks,” Moren said. “The third quarter... we shoot 12 percent. We’re 2-for-17. We got the shots. We just didn’t hit them, and that’s the frustrating thing.”
As bad as the third quarter was, IU still had a lead entering the final quarter of play. Purdue tied it up at the 7:09 mark, but IU still was able to keep the score in its favor. As the quarter kept progressing, the game slipped away. Shots kept falling for the Boilermakers while shots weren’t falling for IU.
The Hoosiers scored 39 points in the first half and just 21 total in the second half. That was the difference.
The Hoosiers are now in a bit of a waiting game until selection Monday on March 13. Moren said she thinks the Hoosiers have scheduled well enough to earn an NCAA Tournament bid.
She also tried to talk up the Big Ten and lobbied to give the conference an extra bid or two.
Regardless, IU had a chance to control its own destiny and couldn’t take advantage. Moren ultimately acknowledged the uncertainty her team faces due to the loss, saying she truly didn’t know whether the Hoosiers would end up on the right or wrong side of the bubble.
“I would like to think that 20 wins in a really good conference, 10-6, getting the double bye here this afternoon, on paper looks good, I think,” Moren said.
