IU Coach Teri Moren said coming into Saturday that the road contest against the Illinois Fighting Illini was a “must win” game.
IU followed a big win against Michigan last week with a loss to last-place Nebraska. After beating Iowa on Wednesday, IU was in a familiar place with a game against lowly Illinois on Saturday to end the regular season. Moren said if her team hadn’t learned its lesson after Nebraska, she didn’t know when it would.
Despite not gaining full control of the game until the second half, IU was able to avoid another poor loss and knocked off Illinois 74-60 at the State Farm Center in Champaign, Illinois.
Junior guard Tyra Buss said the team was able to learn from its loss at Nebraska.
“Whenever you play on the road, Big Ten especially, you have to come with that energy and that toughness,” Buss said on Big Ten Network after the game.
The Hoosiers were slow out of the gate and trailed after the first quarter similarly to last weekend. IU ultimately fought back and had a slim lead at half. In the third quarter, IU extended its lead to 11, its highest of the game at that point. From there they coasted.
The Hoosiers have struggled shooting on the road for much of the season. Early Saturday that trend continued.
IU shot just 22 percent in the first quarter and were zero-for-seven from behind the arc. The struggles felt similar to the ones experienced against Nebraska — the shot selection wasn’t that bad for IU, but the shots weren’t falling.
Once the second quarter started, IU senior Karlee McBride displayed her signature ability to get hot from deep in a flash.
In the midst of a 15-2 run, McBride knocked down two second-quarter shots from behind the arc to get the Hoosiers back in the game. The senior finished with 15 points and made five 3-pointers while only attempting one shot from inside the arc.
IU ended the day shooting 42 percent on 25-of-60 shooting. From behind the arc, the Hoosiers weren’t afraid to let it fly. They were 9-of-24.
“I thought once again Karlee showed a tremendous amount of leadership in the huddle, and then she came down and in transition and hit a big 3,” Moren told reporters after the game.
Moren has been trying to preach a winning mentality for much of the season. The expectations were there early in the season, and now IU is the four seed in the Big Ten Tournament.
The team will need to continue to play the type of winning basketball they have in the last two games in order to solidify a spot in the NCAA Tournament field of 64.
“We felt like our shots were going to end up falling for us,” Moren said on BTN after the game. “Give our kids credit. They figured it out. It was a slow start early, but we just started to get it done defensively.”
