Hoosiers give seniors win on senior day

IU Coach Curt Miller said he wanted to send his senior class out of Assembly Hall with a win.

He got his wish.

The Hoosiers (18-9, 5-9) never trailed and coasted to a 79-61 victory against Illinois (9-18, 2-12) Saturday on senior night.

“We have a lot of young kids that contribute on the floor, and they played their hearts and souls out for that senior class today,” Miller said. “(I’m) really excited for our seniors on senior day to go out with a victory in Assembly Hall.”

IU opened the game on a 20-5 run, during which the Hoosiers’ starting guards combined for 16 early points.

Quick hands early on the defensive end led to four steals during the game’s opening minutes. Those steals led to 13 points off of Illinois turnovers, helping IU build its 15-point lead.

Turning turnovers into points became a major scoring source for IU, which scored 27 points off 16 Illini turnovers.

“We wanted to run early in transition,” Miller said. “I thought our defense was really aggressive early, and we got a lot of deflections which set the tempo.”

Illinois responded to IU’s quick start with a 7-0 run of its own to cut the deficit to eight.
That would be the closest Illinois got to threatening the Hoosier lead.

Senior forward Simone Deloach scored on a layup in the post, and freshman guard Larryn Brooks walked into a 3-pointer to spark a quick 5-0 run and build a 13-point lead. The Illini never got within nine points the rest of the game.

Illinois was without 6-foot-3 freshman forward Jacqui Grant — the team’s third-leading scorer — who missed the game due to illness. With Grant’s absence, the Hoosiers put extra emphasis on attacking the Illini’s remaining post-players. The Hoosiers scored 42 points in the paint and got a career-high 14 point performance from Deloach.

IU’s success in the paint opened the floor for its 3-point shooters to score from beyond the arc. The freshman guard trio of Brooks, Alexis Gassion and Taylor Agler converted on all nine of IUs made 3-pointers, setting the IU single-season record for made 3-pointers with 206 in the process.

Brooks led all scorers with 20 points and finished one assist shy of a double-double.
 
Agler, Gassion and Deloach all joined Brooks with double-digit scoring, and senior forward Tabitha Gerardot added nine points of her own. IU’s starting five accounted for 73 of the team’s 79 points.

Gassion said creating balance between 3-point shooting and attacking the post was a major talking point in practice this week.

“That was one of our goals,” Gassion said. “We wanted to balance inside and out, so we wanted the post to get some catches, but the guards to shoot some threes, too.”

Miller said IU still has improving to do if they want to continue to win games this year.

With two games remaining before the Big Ten Tournament and a potential postseason tournament left to play, he said IU has yet to play a complete game where all five positions were playing well this season. Miller said the quick start against the Illini made up for IU’s mistakes.

“We weren’t perfect,” Miller said. “There was still some scout mistakes. There was still some fundamental mistakes, but we survived them because we had a cushion.”

Follow reporter Sam Beishuizen on Tiwtter  @Sam_Beishuizen.