Hoosiers fall to No. 23 Michigan at home

Once again, Indiana hung with No. 23 Michigan, one of the Big Ten’s best teams.

Once again, the Hoosiers were doomed by poor shooting performance and had too much ground to make up, too late.

The Wolverines started the second half on a 6-2 run and never looked back, extinguishing several IU comeback attempts to beat the Hoosiers 61-43 Thursday night in Assembly Hall.

“I haven’t sat up here a lot this year and felt the helplessness and the disappointment that I have tonight,” IU Coach Curt Miller said. “I don’t have a lot of answers after that game.”

IU (10-9, 1-5 Big Ten) shot just 26 percent for the game.

Senior Aulani Sinclair scored a team-high 14 points but was smothered by the Michigan defense all night, encountering consistent traps and double teams. She finished 5-of-15 from the field.

IU’s offense was particularly hampered by the performance of its post players. A frontcourt of Simone Deloach, Linda Rubene, Sasha Chaplin and Milika Taufa combined for just seven points on 3-of-20 shooting.

Deloach and Rubene, the starting forwards, did not make a basket after 12 seconds into the game.

“(It was) just so frustrating to shoot the type of percentage that we did inside the arc,” Miller said. “We can’t stop runs, and we can’t battle through some of the droughts better because we have such a hard time scoring.”

IU shot 7 of 21 (33 percent) from beyond the arc, meeting Miller’s goal of making at least seven threes against the Wolverines’ 2-3 zone.

Perhaps most frustrating for IU, however, was the plethora of misses that were good looks, many within five feet of the basket. It felt like almost a repeat of IU’s loss to Michigan on Jan. 3.

“We knew we were gonna have some open shots,” Sinclair said. “Tonight it felt like we hit some more and had more opportunities and more people were shooting the ball, which is better for us, once again we just have to find a way to put the ball in the basket.”

IU stayed even with Michigan through the first 11-plus minutes, and then the Wolverines started to pull away. Jenny Ryan, Rachel Sheffer and Sam Arnold each hit 3-point shots over the next 4:33 as Michigan extended its lead to 30-20 with 4:17 to go in the half.

The Wolverines entered the locker room up 34-17 and started the second half on a 6-2 run. They led 52-28 with 11:07 remaining, to take their largest lead of the game at 24 points.

"We worked really hard on what we thought was a really good gameplan and we couldn’t make enough shots … and our gameplan was never able to take shape,” Miller said. “It’s so important for us to play from the front. We can’t play from behind with the way our offense is.”

The Hoosiers showed some life, however, responding with a 10-0 run during the next 1:22. Sinclair hit back-to-back buckets and freshman guard Nicole Bell hit a long 3-pointer to make it 52-38 with 9:45 remaining.

Bell was one of the few bright spots for IU, scoring 11 points on 3-of-7 3-point shooting.
 
“Especially against the zone they’re always shading towards Aulani,” she said. “So to try to help open up the zone and get better ball movement I have to be a scoring option.”

After Michigan extended its lead to 18 points with 7:06 to go, IU made a final push. Sinclair hit a three and Bell a floater in the lane that made it 56-43 Michigan with 4:32 left.

In the end, it was too little too late. In particular, Sinclair said IU has to do a better job guarding when a play breaks down and limit offensive rebounds.

“Once we started boxing them out for that stretch, it really helped up,” she said. “But in the long run we just have to stop having these mental breakdowns and just fight the entire time.”