All season long, a big three has carried IU women's basketball.
The trio, composed of senior guard Alexis Gassion, junior guard Tyra Buss and junior forward Amanda Cahill, carried the Hoosiers once again on Saturday. IU Coach Teri Moren has been looking for the bench to get more involved the past few games, but that didn't quite happen against the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.
Behind double-double performances from both Gassion and Cahill, IU rolled past Oakland 84-59 to win its 20th straight game at home.
“I thought they came out in the first half and were pretty sharp,” Moren said in a postgame press conference posted to iuhoosiers.com. “It got a little sloppy there down the stretch, but I thought Amanda Cahill again played – her energy and her hustle stood out for me.”
Buss scored each of her 12 points against Oakland in the first quarter to get her team started, and found opportunities for her fellow Hoosiers as the game continued. At game's end she was responsible for six of IU's 15 assists and had upped her double-digit scoring streak to 48 straight games.
The Hoosiers usually shoot upwards of 50 percent from the field. Saturday, that wasn’t the case. They shot just 44 percent from the field and 35 percent from behind the arc. It wasn’t a prototypical shooting day, but IU still found a way to pull out a 20-plus-point win.
“This was a game I was concerned about,” Moren said in the press conference. “Watching them on film, they had a lot of different pieces, they’re athletic, and the thing I worried about the most was if they got hot from the outside.”
Gassion impressed on the boards again and Cahill put in another all-around performance. Gassion finished with 15 points and 20 rebounds while Cahill had 17 points and 10 rebounds. It's Cahill's second straight double-double and the 21st of her career.
Senior forward Jenn Anderson contributed 12 points and five rebounds in her fifth straight start after coming off the bench to start the campaign.
IU's reserves didn't produce much, but their lack of scoring was made up for by the starters. Midway through the fourth quarter, IU had just eight bench points. The Hoosiers finished with 22 points from bench players, but the majority didn't come during meaningful minutes.
Defensively the Hoosiers turned in a strong performance. IU scored 13 points off 15 turnovers, notched 10 steals and recorded six blocks. Gassion and Anderson finished with two each.
“We knew they were going to use a lot of pick and roll action so we had to get our hands high when we would rotate,” Anderson said in the press conference. “We got a ton of deflections and that led to offense and that led to run outs that we had.”
IU now has a few days off before it travels to Winter Park, Florida for the Florida Sunshine Classic. The Hoosiers will take on the Florida Gators Tuesday and play Stony Brook Wednesday.
“All week coach has preached that we need to make growth defensively and pick up our defensive energy,” Anderson said in the press conference. “Going on the road to a good Florida team and then to Stony Brook, we have to finish strong before we come back from the Christmas break and start Big Ten play.”
