Hoosiers try to bounce back after tough overtime loss to rival Purdue

Coming off its first conference loss -- in an overtime thriller against rival Purdue, no less -- the IU women's basketball team will attempt to get back on track at 7 p.m. tonight versus another ranked Big Ten team when the No. 15 Minnesota Golden Gophers invade Assembly Hall. \nThursday's 61-56 loss to the No. 14 Boilermakers was the first conference loss of the season for the Hoosiers, dropping them to 8-5 overall and 2-1 in Big Ten play.\nIU will try to turn things around tonight against Minnesota in Assembly Hall. The Golden Gophers are 2-0 in conference play, but are coming off a tough road loss to No. 3 Louisiana State University.\nMinnesota has struggled early in the season on the road with a 1-3 record.\nTo stop the Golden Gophers, IU will have to slow down a balanced Minnesota attack that features five players averaging more than eight points per game. Junior center Liz Podominick leads the way with 11.8 points per game. \nIU will counter with the one-two combo of senior guard Cyndi Valentin and senior forward Jenny DeMuth. The seniors are the only Hoosiers averaging double digits with 17.3 and 13.9 points per game respectively.\nEarlier this season, IU assistant coach Jody Benner talked about the importance of having Valentin and DeMuth playing at a high level.\n"Jenny will definitely take some of the scoring burden off of Cyndi," Benner said. "Hopefully, the scoring burden will be spread around the whole team."\nWhen each player scores double digits, the Hoosiers are 8-3. When only one tallies more than 10 points, the Hoosiers' record is 0-3. \nMinnesota presents IU with its first chance to rebound from the disappointing loss Thursday night. \nIn the last play of regulation Thursday, sophomore guard Nikki Smith took a charge against Purdue guard Sharika Webb, preventing the Boilermakers from scoring and sending the game into overtime.\nThe Hoosiers failed to muster a similar effort in the extra period, though, scoring only three points as Purdue went on to its third conference victory of the year.\nDeMuth led IU with 13 points and 12 rebounds, the 15th double-double of her career.\nIU coach Sharon Versyp had an extra incentive for beating Purdue. The first-year coach attended Purdue from 1984-88, where she averaged 13.8 points per game in 113 contests. \n"It was exciting to play against my alma mater," Versyp said in a statement. "We knew this was going to be a big game for us and in the end, it was free throws that killed us."\nThe Hoosiers shot just 12 of 23 from the charity stripe compared to 14 of 19 for Purdue. While the rest of the team struggled, Valentin extended her streak of made free throws to 56, just four away from the NCAA Division I consecutive free throws made in a season (60).