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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports women's basketball

Turnovers didn’t help IU but neither did its team defense against Auburn

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IU women’s basketball took the floor Sunday afternoon, where it saw itself lose a third-straight game in a 65-53 loss to Auburn.

The Tigers pressed IU the whole game and played a 1-2-2 trap zone on defense. In turn, the Hoosiers committed 23 turnovers, which the Tigers scored 25 points off of. 

As detrimental as that was for IU, there were stretches where the team was able to break the press and the zone to get rolling offensively when it limited its turnovers. 

Even those offensive outbursts weren’t enough, however, due to IU’s team defense being sub par throughout the 40 minutes. 

“We didn’t do a very good job defensively,” IU Coach Teri Moren said. “There’s no question that one of our problems is being able to guard our man.”

Auburn junior guard Janiah McKay scored 22 points, grabbed five boards and dished out six assists, while sophomore guard Daisa Alexander dropped 25 points. 

No one else on the Auburn team scored more than five points. 

McKay had a player efficiency rating of 24 and Alexander had one of 23. The highest PER from the Hoosiers came from freshman guard Jaelynn Penn at 19. Penn finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds. 

Only Penn and senior forward Amanda Cahill, who had a PER of 16, were the only two from IU to have a PER over seven. 

The athleticism of McKay and Alexander was one of the reasons why they torched the IU defense, something Moren said the team struggled with against Louisville as well.

“It’s one on one,” Moren said. “Everybody guards the ball. If one person is on the ball, then the other four have to help guard the ball too.”


Moren said she thought her team was stuck to their man like glue. She saw no assistance and high-gap help whatsoever. 

Senior guard Tyra Buss, who was coming off her lowest point total of the season against Louisville with 12 points, finished with only 10 tonight and said this game was a game of runs. 

“We stuck in it, and we made our run at the end,” Buss said. “But, we just couldn’t make the right plays at the end of the game that we needed to make, and we weren’t aggressive enough for the full 40 minutes.”

It was both sides of the floor at the end of the game as IU went scoreless from the 3:52 mark to the buzzer, while the defense allowed a 6-0 run in that time span too. The Tigers made their last five of six field goals attempted. 

“It’s disappointing,” Moren said about the team’s defense. “At this point, even though it’s early December, we know better than that.”

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