Hoosiers' streak ended by Cleveland State

In the post, on the perimeter and in transition, Cleveland State forward Shalonda Winton found a variety of ways to score on her way to a game-high 23 points.

Winton’s Vikings (3-4) knocked off the Hoosiers (6-2) Sunday in Assembly Hall, 69-58, snapping IU’s six-game win streak.

“It was a really tough matchup for us on how to choose to guard her, and she stepped up and made big shots, none bigger than the late 3-pointer in the game,” IU Coach Curt Miller said.

IU was down just three points with 1:35 left in the game when Winton buried a 3-pointer from the right wing with the shot clock winding down that made it 63-57
Vikings.

Winton didn’t just score throughout the night. She finished with a game-high nine assists.

The Vikings shot 51.6 percent in the first half, including 4-of-9 on threes.

“Play defense — that was probably the biggest thing from the first half going into the second half — is they shot a couple of threes that we couldn’t just get out there and contest,” senior guard Jasmine McGhee said. “Coming out in the second half, (Miller) just wanted us to talk more and play more defense.”

Down 37-27 at halftime, the Hoosiers got within three points of the Vikings three times in the last five minutes but just couldn’t surmount the hump as CSU hit clutch shot after clutch shot.

“It was tough,” senior forward Linda Rubene said. “Every time we got close, they came back and hit a shot, hit a three, so it was really hard to get a lead. We did what we could, but it was just tough because they hit all those shots.”

Rubene scored a career-high 13 points — 6-of-11 shooting — by exploiting switches on ball screens, often slipping to the basket for uncontested layups.

“Coming into the game, we knew they were gonna switch (on) screens,” Rubene said. “So it was one of the things coach said before the game, ‘work on slips, work inside,’ because their post players were pretty much 5-(foot)-10, their guards were 5-(foot)-5, so we were trying to get the ball in slip or just use their switches.”

Forward junior Milika Taufa scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds, but the Hoosiers had a tough time guarding the Vikings’ more athletic, guard-heavy lineup.

“(Our guards) didn’t play as well as their guards, bottom line,” Miller said. “Our post players weren’t as dominant as we needed them to be to pull off a win against a team we did not match up very well against.”

Senior forward Aulani Sinclair, IU’s leading scorer with 20.3 points per game before Sunday, scored just five points on 1-of-8 shooting — 1-of-5 on 3-pointers — and didn’t convert a shot from the field until hitting a 3-pointer with 3:32 to go, making it
57-54 CSU.

On the very next possession, forward Haley Schmitt, seven points, hit a three in Sinclair’s face to extend the lead back to six.

“I thought they did a great job on Aulani,” Miller said. “Aulani’s accounted for so much of scoring this year. When she doesn’t score, it puts a lot of pressure on other people.”

McGhee lead the Hoosiers with 14 points, 4-of-13 shooting, and 11 rebounds, her second double-double of the year.

The 69 points allowed snapped IU’s streak of limiting five consecutive opponents to 50 points or less.

To start a new winning streak, it will come down to defense, Miller said.

“We said from the beginning of the year, offense is gonna be tough to come by, and that doesn’t change no matter who the opponent is,” he said. “That’s why we work so hard at the defensive end. That’s why every possession is so important for us at the defensive end.

“We have to find ways to keep the score low to have any chance of pulling off
victories.”