It has been a season of ups and downs so far for IU women's basketball.
The Hoosiers overcame a grueling road stretch early in the season that saw them lose three out of four games in late November and early December and reeled off seven straight victories, but Saturday suffered a setback in a loss to Ohio State that snapped IU's 20-game home winning streak.
The Hoosiers now have a chance to put that loss behind them when the Minnesota Golden Gophers visit Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday.
“One of the things about our team, and this comes from our staff, is we just maintain the mantra that we’re never going to get too high over a win or too low after a loss,” IU Coach Teri Moren said. “We always talk about bounce-back-ability after a tough defeat and what’s nice is that — especially after you come up short — it’s nice to be home.”
IU had one of IU's worst shooting outputs of the season Saturday and is looking to get past that. They have hovered around an average of 50 percent from the floor all season, but shot just 39.1 percent as a team in the 10-point loss.
IU junior forward Amanda Cahill was one of the only Hoosiers to really assert herself on the offensive end against the Buckeyes. Cahill finished with a career-high 28 points. Wednesday, she will need the assistance of fellow junior guard Tyra Buss along with senior guard Alexis Gassion. Together those three combine for 58.7 percent of the scoring on offense.
“We’ve gotten a lot of shots in practice over the past couple of days, more than usual," Buss said. “We work on defense and the last couple of days, we’ve worked on shooting in Assembly because we really haven’t been able to practice in Assembly besides a couple of days before the Ohio State game.”
The Hoosiers are 1-1 to start the conference slate. The Gophers, on the other hand, haven’t picked up that elusive first conference win as of yet. The schedule-makers haven’t been too kind to Minnesota, who has already had to face top-ranked teams Ohio State and Maryland. Both were double-digit losses for the Gophers.
Much like IU, there have been some ebbs and flows to the season for Minnesota. At 9-6, the Gophers started off 4-0 before they lost three straight. They did bounce back, winning five of their last six in nonconference play.
Minnesota lost star guard Rachel Banham and her 28.6 points per game from a season ago. This year it has been a backcourt duo of junior Carlie Wagner and sophomore Kenisha Bell leading the way. They account for 35.2 points per game combined.
“We have a tremendous amount of respect for Carlie Wagner,” Moren said. “Obviously, Kenisha Bell sets them up for their transition game which they’re really good at. They have pieces that are interesting.”
Wednesday, the Hoosiers will need to get back to hitting shots. Minnesota's 25-point loss to the Buckeyes proves IU should have a decent opportunity to get back in the win column.
Zain Pyarali contributed to reporting on this article.
