As Indiana women’s basketball headed to the locker room at halftime, it trailed the University of Illinois Chicago by 7 points. Its shots weren’t falling. It looked sluggish defensively.
However, as the Hoosiers returned to the court after the break, their play looked completely different.
Offensively, Indiana played with tempo, and defensively it continued to get stops time and time again. The stark contrast from the first half ultimately helped the Hoosiers to a 16-point win over the Flames on Friday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall — a 23-point swing from the first to second half.
Shay Ciezki was a key part of that switch. The senior guard, who scored 25 points in the second half, said postgame the message from 12th-year head coach Teri Moren at halftime was about persevering through the adversity.
“She (Moren) came in, and our biggest thing was just fight harder,” Ciezki said. “We didn't do a great job first half of being in our gaps, boxing out, rebounding, so we just came in with the mindset of ‘We just gotta fight harder. We gotta work harder. We gotta want it more.’”
That message largely worked for Moren’s squad. Defensively, Indiana held UIC to just two baskets from the field in the third quarter. The first was a 3-pointer, and the second was a basket from the paint to end the quarter. The Flames went 5 for 9 from the free-throw line in the third period, which Moren admitted was an area Indiana needed to clean up.
Limiting the Flames’ offense allowed Indiana to make runs of its own, which led it to outscore UIC 19-9 in the third quarter. The Hoosiers eliminated the Flames’ advantage and took a 3-point lead of their own into the fourth quarter, which Indiana would only build upon as it outscored UIC 26-13 in the final frame.
Gettings stops and turnovers on defense allowed Indiana to find its rhythm in transition on the offensive side of the ball. Ciezki said getting into transition and running the court was also stressed in the locker room, and that Indiana is ‘a transition team.”
“There was definitely a mentality switch,” Ciezki said. “We knew that our first half was not up to our standard. We knew that we needed to do better, both offensively and defensively.
Moren also noted her team’s poor decisions — at times — on when to shoot the ball in the first half. Just four players contributed points to the Hoosiers 27 first-half points, including Ciezki, sophomore forward Zania Socka-Nguemen, redshirt sophomore Lenée Beaumont and freshman forward Maya Makalusky.
As one of the Hoosiers’ veteran leaders, Ciezki took that message to heart and displayed it for the rest of her team. Socka-Nguemen, who was the only other Hoosier to score in double figures with 19 points and 13 rebounds in the contest, said stepping up in those moments is something the leaders, like herself and Ciezki, will have to continue to do throughout the season, especially with so many new faces on the roster.
And that leadership was not only present in the way Ciezki and Socka-Nguemen played on the court, but also in how they spoke about the Hoosiers’ adversity-filled contest afterward. Ciezki viewed it as a learning opportunity and test of how the squad with six transfers and two freshmen will respond in difficult contests.
“Obviously we didn’t play great, but I’m glad this happened,” Ciezki said. “I’m glad we had to face adversity second game. It’s better now than when we’re down in Big Ten conference play. I think it was a great test to see how we can stick together; how we go on different runs and we’re just constantly talking to each other, we’re uplifting each other.”
Follow reporters Savannah Slone (@savrivers06 and srslone@iu.edu) and Max Schneider (maxschn@iu.edu) and columnist Sean McAvoy (@sean_mc07 and semcavoy@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
