Women's basketball team plays for ‘important’ win on home court

Fresh off a hard-fought road win at Purdue on Monday, the IU women’s basketball team (10-7, 3-2) returns home for another tough test against Minnesota (13-5, 4-2) today at Assembly Hall.\nAfter an emotional win over the rival Boilermakers and a couple days of preparation for the Golden Gophers, the Hoosiers have shifted their focus to the task at hand. \n“We talk about staying in the moment,” IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “That was a great win for us, but we’ve moved on. We’re going to stay focused on what we need to do to stay competitive against Minnesota. I think we’ve moved on already.”\nSitting in a five-way tie for third place in the Big Ten and looking up at second place Minnesota, Legette-Jack stressed the importance of getting a win at home. \n“You have to take care of your home court,” she said. “Assembly Hall is a tough place to play for our opponents. Our fans are getting louder and our numbers are getting better and it’s getting tougher to be here. Our kids have to continue to do their part and play competitive defense and play with a sense of urgency.”\nDefending the Minnesota offense won’t be easy because the Golden Gophers have two of the top three scorers in Big Ten conference play. Guard Emily Fox and forward Leslie Knight have accounted for 17.7 and 16.3 points per game in Big Ten games,respectively. Despite the impressive numbers, the Hoosiers are confident they can slow down Fox and Knight. \n“I think Kim (Roberson) puts a lot of pressure on the ball, so she’s going to do a really good job on Emily Fox and our post players work so well together,” senior guard Nikki Smith said. “Obviously they are really good, but we play good people every single week, so we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing and pressure them.”\nLegette-Jack said Minnesota can attack on offense in different ways, but she agreed that keeping Fox and Knight in check is a key to the game. \n“If we can maintain balance and find out where they are and pay attention to those two, then we have a shot to be competitive in this game,” she said.\nIU has four starters averaging double-figure scoring on the season – sophomore guard Jamie Braun, junior forward Whitney Thomas, junior forward Amber Jackson and Roberson – but the Hoosiers have also seen key contributions from their bench.\n“That is huge, because we can’t do it by ourselves, just the starting five,” Jackson said. “We need to have people come off the bench and keep it going. It’s great that some of our freshmen are stepping up and really helping us out.”\nGoing into the contest against Minnesota, the Hoosiers hope to build on the good performance against Purdue, but they know there is plenty of room for improvement.\n“We watched the Purdue film and for how many good things we did, there were also a few bad things.” Smith said. “We just have to learn from those bad things and apply them to the game against Minnesota.”