The only thing in doubt Wednesday afternoon was whether or not IU senior Alexis Gassion would reach the 1,000-point mark for her career.
She needed 18 points to accomplish the feat, and after chipping away at the mark all afternoon, was the only starter on the floor in the game's final minutes. With 1:47 to play, Gassion made a left-handed lay-in and became the 25th player in IU history to reach the milestone.
IU (4-1) headed into Thanksgiving with a 79-45 bounce back win over the UMass Lowell River Hawks behind a game-high 18 points from Gassion.
“I try not to think about it,” Gassion, who added five rebounds and six assists, said. “I come into the game with the same mentality and that’s being an unselfish player. There was a thought on my mind that I could be, but I had to flip that switch to become a more offensive and defensive player.”
Gassion and junior guard Tyra Buss are the first duo to score 1,000 points in the same season since Jamie Braun and Whitey Thomas in 2008-09.
IU controlled the game from the opening tip to the final buzzer, and turned 34 River Hawk turnovers into 38 points. Buss finished with 14 points and tallied a career-high eight steals in her 25 minutes on the floor.
She attributed part of IU's bounce-back win to the commitment to ball screens in practice.
“I think after that Western Kentucky loss, we came into practice and we were really upset about how we played and we didn’t really do that well defensively and we didn’t follow the game plan as well as we should have,” Buss said. “Yesterday and the day before in practice, all we on defense was guard ball screens. I thought we came out with a lot of energy.”
IU junior Amanda Cahill got things going early on for the Hoosiers. She scored five of the Hoosiers’ first seven points and ended with 15 points and six rebounds. IU senior Jenn Anderson continued to her early season improvement and scored eight points and grabbed six rebounds off the bench.
The Hoosiers controlled the offensive glass and were unselfish on offense. IU turned 14 offensive rebounds into 15 second chance points and assisted on 21 of 33 made shots.
IU Coach Teri Moren was disappointed by her squad's 47.8 percent clip from the charity stripe, however.
“There was nothing better than being able to come back into Assembly Hall and regroup,” Moren said. “I thought we put together a solid, maybe not 40, but close to 40 (minutes) of some great defensive series and that was our goal.”
