Women's basketball drops from Big Ten's top spot with loss to Illini

The sign of a great team is defeating those you are supposed to beat. On paper, the Hoosiers were supposed to defeat the Fighting Illini.

The two teams came into yesterday’s matchup on opposite ends of the Big Ten. The Hoosiers were atop the standings, having won 13 of their past 14 games and riding a four-game winning streak.

The Fighting Illini were in last place in the conference, having lost 10 straight including all nine Big Ten games.


But each team’s record proved nothing.

The bottom-dwelling Illini knocked off conference leader IU 62-51 Sunday at Assembly Hall in Champaign, Ill.

Sophomore guard Jori Davis opened the game by knocking down a 3-point basket, giving the Hoosiers an early 3-0 lead, 32 seconds into the game.

But IU missed its next 14 field goal attempts. Despite the long drought, the Hoosiers found themselves leading 9-6 after senior forward Whitney Thomas’ jump shot at 9:38.

“We work collectively as a part of the offense and for people to do one-on-one at times in the offense, we’ll never accept that kind of thought process,” IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said in a statement. “The shots just didn’t fall. In the game of basketball, the ball has to go in the hole, and the shots that we took did not fall. We had 12 steals. We took 63 shots, and we took shots in our range, but at the end of the day, we didn’t score.”

Sophomore guard Whitney Lindsay’s layup in the last minute of the half gave the Hoosiers a two-point advantage at halftime, 22-20 – their lowest halftime output all season.

But the second half belonged to Illinois’ junior center Jenna Smith. Smith, who had six points and eight rebounds at halftime, exploded in the second half with 18 points and seven rebounds.

With the score tied at 33, Illinois’ shots began to fall while IU’s didn’t. The lead grew to six – 39-33 – with 9:10 remaining in the game.

Less than three minutes later, the lead doubled, 45-33 with 6:35 left.

By that point, the only thing left in doubt was Illinois’ margin of victory, which ended up being 11.

IU, who entered the game second in the conference in field goal percentage at 43 percent, made only 28.6 percent of its shots (18-of-63). In contrast, Illinois came in shooting 36.6 percent and finished the game hitting 46 percent of its shots.

IU had 12 steals and forced 21 turnovers, two positives from Sunday’s game.

“We had to press to find a way to try and offset (Illinois), and we got the steals, we got the opportunities,” Legette-Jack said. “I give credit to great shooting from Illinois because our shots certainly didn’t fall.”