IU hopes to recover against Belmont

After its six-game win streak snapped Sunday at Assembly Hall, the IU women’s basketball team will look to rebound at 7 p.m. today when it welcomes Belmont.

The Hoosiers will be playing their fourth game in nine days, the quickest turnaround for them all season.

It is also the end of a five-game home stand, the longest of the season.

The matchup with the Bruins comes just two days after losing to Cleveland State.

“We have a one-day prep for a Belmont team who I think is very strong, a very, very talented mid-major team,” IU Coach Curt Miller said.

The Hoosiers had a one-day prep eight days ago when they started this four-game stretch. After beating IPFW 64-47, IU (6-2) had one day to prepare for Clemson, whom the team defeated 52-49.

Miller said after the game he thought his team looked a little gassed.

“You’ve got to squeeze games in,” Miller said. “I think one-day preps are good for you in the long run because you’re going to have some one-day preps come Big Ten Tournament time and as you build a program.”

Going forward, the team will have at least two days to prepare for all of its games for the rest of the regular season.

After struggling a bit offensively the past two games, shooting under 40 percent and turning the ball over 16 times in each game, Miller’s said his biggest concern was with the short turnaround is not being able to fix some of his team’s problems.

“You’re always working on your opponent, and you never have time to fix some of your own stuff, because you have to move on to your next opponent,” Miller said. “That’s the hard part. We have not had a stretch in a long time where we can work on ourselves. We’ve been working on the next opponent, the next opponent, the next opponent.”

Belmont (3-5) is led by a trio of starters who all average more than nine points per game.

Senior forward Alyssa Visbeen comes in as the team’s top scorer at 10.6 points per game.

Senior forward Jordan Coleman, a transfer from Vanderbilt, averages 9.8, and senior guard Katie Brooks is putting in 9.3 points per game and a team-high 3.4 assists per game.

The Bruins are getting outscored this season by an average of 62.5 to 58.2. They’re coming off a 70-54 Saturday victory at Lipscomb.

They share three common opponents on the season with the Hoosiers in Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Indiana State, IUPUI and SIU-Edwardsville.

The Bruins lost 48-34 at Indiana State and also suffered an eight-point loss at home to IUPUI. They beat Corpus Christi 75-54.

The Hoosiers went 3-0 against those opponents. Neither has faced SIU-Edwardsville yet.

For the Hoosiers, senior forward Aulani Sinclair will be looking to bounce back after her first game of the season after scoring less than 16 points.

She scored five points on 1-8 shooting Sunday.

“She’s an X-factor in our offense, and everybody has those struggles and ups and downs sometimes,” senior guard Jasmine McGhee said.

McGhee said she knows it’s important for the team not to worry about Sunday’s loss.

“I think that we need to go ahead and just shake it off and just work on what we know we can work on,” she said.