Hoosiers toughen against Marquette, advance in WNIT

The finality of losing in postseason college basketball creates an environment in which teams desperately compete to continue their seasons.

There is little solace waiting for the next season after a loss. For seniors, careers come to an abrupt end with defeat. Every game is a fight for teams to live to play another game.

In IU’s 72-69 victory against Marquette (22-11) in the second round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, the Hoosiers (20-12) fought off the Golden Eagles’ comeback while showing a toughness IU Coach Curt Miller said he hasn’t seen out of his team.

Miller told his players in the locker room at halftime that despite having a 15 point lead, Marquette wouldn’t go down without a fight. His team needed to be ready to fend off a comeback.

During crunch time, when IU most needed to stand strong to hold off to its lead, the Hoosiers fought and survived.

“They’re starting to show a toughness that I’m not sure they had in November,” Miller said.

After the game, freshman guard Taylor Agler on Twitter compared the physicality of the game to a cage fight.

Agler took an inadvertent arm to the face from a Marquette player when fighting for a rebound that forced her to head to the bench briefly.

Miller said Agler will likely have a black eye because of the play, but he was impressed with the way she fought it off and continued to play through it.

It was that type of game for IU.

“It was a battle,” senior forward Simone Deloach said.

Marquette entered the game as the nation’s second leading rebounding team, outrebounding opponents by 13.3 boards per game.

Deloach was charged with leading the Hoosiers’ defensive efforts against Marquette senior forward Katherine Plouffe, one of the nation’s premier post players. and a major reason behind Marquette’s rebounding success.

Plouffe entered Saturday’s contest having just posted one of the standout performances in WNIT history in Marquette’s opening round win against Indiana State.

Plouffe scored 19 points and a WNIT-record 26 rebounds against the Sycamores.

Plouffe, who averages 17 points and 10 rebounds per game, was held to four points and six rebounds by Deloach and the rest of the IU post players.

Plouffe didn’t score until the closing minutes of the opening half.
“She really made us work,” Deloach said.

“We knew it was going to be a tough challenge for our fours, but Tabitha (Gerardot) and Lyndsey (Leikem) had their work put in and I think they did a fantastic job.”

The Hoosiers kept up with the Golden Eagles on the boards only being outrebounded by three.

IU’s biggest rebound came from freshman Alexis Gassion who sealed the win with a rebound and subsequence made free throws after being intentionally fouled.

Freshman Larryn Brooks, who fought for high percentage shots on offense.

Miller said Brooks had been missing her “swagger” in recent games. But during shootaround before Marquette, he said, he saw it.

Brooks was aggressive in getting to the basket. Despite facing Marquette’s large backcourt, Brooks fought to create opportunities around the basket and finished with 33 points. Brooks had 22 of her points in the opening half of play.

She shot 8-for-11 from within the arc, most of those two-point opportunities coming after battling through defenders and getting layup opportunities.

“She was aggressive and hunted for shots,” Miller said of Brooks.

“She puts us on her back ... She was getting such good penetration that she was getting to the rim. She hadn’t gotten to the time against Big Ten teams like that for a while so it was really good to see.”