Once the buzzer sounded after IU’s 65-56 victory against Samford, the Hoosiers captured their seventh victory in a young season.
Not many of those victories have been easy for IU Coach Teri Moren and her team, though. IU (7-2) began the season with a rout of inferior Tennessee State in the first round of the Preseason WNIT before surprising No. 24 Chattanooga on its home floor. After a tough loss at No. 19 DePaul in the semifinals of the tournament, the Hoosiers battled to a 79-72 win at IPFW; a pair of games that included a combined 44 turnovers.
From there, IU’s offense sputtered against a talented Ohio team in the Vanderbilt Thanksgiving Tournament before shooting the lights out against Austin Peay in a 90-58 drubbing of the Governors. The Hoosiers stood at 5-2 after defeating Georgia Tech in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge at home, a win that is expected to stand out at the conclusion of Moren’s second season in Bloomington.
In Moren’s return to the Indiana State sidelines on Tuesday, IU’s offense sputtered in the fourth quarter despite having a 48-36 lead after three quarters of play. The Hoosiers were forced to overcome adversity, as Moren’s squad was unable to make a field-goal in the fourth quarter, scoring just five points in that timespan. The Hoosiers were able to breathe a sigh of relief when the Sycamores’ missed a game-winning 3-pointer.
On Friday night against Samford, IU was forced to play through adversity once more. The Hoosiers trailed by as many as 11 points with four minutes remaining in the third quarter against a Southern Conference team. IU’s full-court press, courtesy of sophomore guard Tyra Buss and junior guard Alexis Gassion, jumpstarted a 10-0 run that allowed the Hoosiers to take a 46-45 lead entering the final ten minutes of regulation. Though both teams struggled to score down the stretch, IU bounced back from converting just one field goal in the fourth quarter to outscoring Samford 13-4 in overtime.
“One thing that I was really happy with was how we pulled together at the end,” Cahill said. “Last year, when we’d get in these types of situations down the stretch, we’d kind of pull apart. Today, we really stuck together and that’s something that we’ve been working on.”
Friday represented yet another gritty win the Hoosiers have been able to pull out, regardless of the opponent. A season ago, IU played just two non-conference games that were decided by single digits. However, in 2015-16, the Hoosiers have played six games within an 11-point scoring margin, winning five of them against stronger opposition than last year’s team.
“A big thing to owe that to is chemistry,” Cahill said. “We’ve been spending a lot of time together off the court. As we keep going, it’s a good feeling to know that we can stick together toward the end and pull out a win.”
Sophomore forward Amanda Cahill, who tallied her first double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds, and Buss have led the charge in rallying the team together. Buss, despite shooting just 3-of-12 from the floor, finished with 15 free throws en route to a game-high 21 points on the night. Cahill played Friday’s game with stitches in her top lip and braces on her teeth after physical play against Georgia Tech and Indiana State.
Cahill, Buss and Moren all mentioned the importance of IU’s chemistry that has allowed the Hoosiers to rally together during frustrating stretches of games.
“This is a tremendous group,” Moren said. “You can just see that they really enjoy each other. At Indiana State, they were starting to get the disease of me. It was nice to learn that lesson tonight. We saw a completely different team in how together they were.”
The Hoosiers will rest up during finals week before traveling to Miami next weekend for the Florida Sunshine Classic. IU will be presented with tougher challenges in Miami and West Virginia, but as this past week has showed, the Hoosiers might not necessarily be playing the prettiest brand of basketball, but they’re playing a winning brand of basketball.
“We’ve played a lot of games in a short period of time,” Moren said. “We’re going to take a couple days off to allow them to rest. We have finals this week, so we’re going to practice throughout, and we look forward to going down to Florida at the end of the week.”
