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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

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Hoosiers bid farewell to seniors Saturday

Sophomore guard Larryn Brooks attempts to run past a Purdue defender at Assembly Hall on Monday. IU won 77-55 and will play its next game against Northwestern on Thursday.

Before every game at Assembly Hall, Claire Jakubicek stands with her teammates on the court as they run through pre-game layup lines.

As each player touches the midcourt line and prepares for their next shot, they stop to do a personalized handshake with Jakubicek.

Jakubicek, a redshirt junior who has been injured for the past two seasons, never takes her warm ups off. Six knee surgeries have kept her off the court. She hasn’t played in a single game as a Hoosier.

But as she interacts with her teammates minutes before every tipoff, the smile never leaves her face.

IU’s game against Nebraska at Noon on Saturday is the last time Jakubicek, senior Andrea Mize and junior Nicole Bell will step onto Branch McCracken Court. Though the three players combined have played a total of 23 minutes this season, IU Coach Teri Moren said their contributions haven’t gone unnoticed.

“I can tell you that they’re three really, really good people that Indiana should be proud of,” Moren said.

Bell is a vocal leader. She isn’t afraid to tell her team what she thinks they need to hear, whether they want to or not, Moren said. A role most people would be afraid to step into is one Bell embraces.

“She’s very honest, and I love that about people,” Moren said. “She’s not afraid to be truthful at the expense of being unpopular.”

The smile that Jakubicek displays on the court before every game is one that’s always there, Moren said.

The 6-foot forward transferred to IU after her freshman year at Northern Illinois. She was forced to sit out the 2012-13 season due to NCAA transfer rules and then tore her ACL during a 2013 off-season workout, keeping her out for a second-straight year.

Jakubicek planned to return from the injury, but she never recovered well enough.

“When you’re around Claire, you feel good, just because she makes you feel that way,” Moren said.

Mize is the only one of the three seniors to get into a game this season. She most recently scored the final basket in an 85-58 win over Illinois on Feb. 11, a moment that brought the Assembly Hall crowd to its feet.

In practice, Mize is on the scout team most days. Sometimes, she’s just standing on the baseline.

“Mize has just been the steady senior that has just continued to do what we’ve asked her to do,” Moren said. “And a lot of that is not glamorous.”

The three “seniors” will be honored before tipoff against the Cornhuskers in yet another must-win game for IU (14-12, 4-11), which is on a two-game skid.

No. 21 Nebraska (18-8, 8-7) comes to Assembly Hall having lost four of its last five games. The Huskers will be without leading scorer Rachel Theriot, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury after starting the first 21 games of the season. The junior guard was averaging 16.5 points per game.

Moren said even without Theriot, the experienced Huskers will cause problems for the Hoosiers.

“I think they’re still tremendously dangerous, just because they have four seniors in the lineup,” she said. “They’re just tough and gritty and (Coach Connie Yori’s) teams are always like that.”

That toughness is something Moren’s been begging for from her team this season. She said it's crucial that they at least match Nebraska’s on Saturday.

After a loss to Michigan three days ago, Moren didn’t like the way IU executed the defensive game plan and continued to make the same mistakes the Hoosiers have made all season. It all comes back to communication, she said.

Freshman Amanda Cahill agreed, saying the Hoosiers struggled to get back in transition and find a matchup.

“Coach always says, ‘Mismatches don’t beat us, open shots do,’” Cahill said. “We sometimes get too worried about where our person is going instead of running to our spot.”

That loss to the Wolverines made the Hoosiers 0-7 on the road in Big Ten play. They’ll get one more chance at home before closing the season at Maryland and at Rutgers.

And getting this win is important for more than one reason.

“It’d be (the seniors’) last time here on this court,” Cahill said. “It’d be awesome to get a win for them.”

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