Don’t get me wrong, Indiana women’s basketball could not look past any opponent on its schedule this season. However, on paper, Western Carolina University was the easiest team the Hoosiers faced this season. A “trap game,” one may say.
The Catamounts rank 345th on Torvik’s T-Rank and 352nd in the NCAA’s NET rankings — not good. Coming into the season, they were ranked seventh out of eight teams in the Southern Conference’s preseason coaches poll.
And the difference between the programs was clear Sunday.
Indiana cruised past the Catamounts 71-44. There weren’t many negatives for the Hoosiers on both ends of the court. Indiana shot 50% from the field and 40% from 3-point range. It also forced a season-high 21 turnovers. It was an easy — and sometimes boring — win.
But at multiple points throughout the game, I caught myself thinking about whether Indiana had a fighting chance in the Big Ten. A question that shouldn’t come up 13 games into the season.
Yes, the victory over Western Carolina marked the Hoosiers’ last nonconference game of the season. No, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, even though they have an 11-2 record and are 8-0 inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
After Indiana’s first loss of the season — a 106-95 defeat to then-No. 10 Iowa State University on Nov. 30 — senior guard Shay Ciezki said “teams are dying to play like this.” At the time, Ciezki was correct. The Hoosiers had just picked up their first loss of the season, but it was a competitive outing against a team that’s destined to host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.
Coming into that game, Indiana defeated Florida State University on a late layup, dominated in-state foe Butler University and squeezed past fierce mid-major opponents in Marshall University and Gonzaga University.
Now, the Hoosiers look like a team searching for answers.
It starts with injuries. Sophomore forward Zania Socka-Nguemen was a dominant presence down low to start the season. Her 13 points and nine rebounds per game were crucial for Indiana, but she’s missed six consecutive contests.
Along with Socka-Nguemen, sophomore forward Faith Wiseman has been out since playing in the Dec. 6 blowout loss to Illinois. Wiseman only recorded 34 minutes in seven games this season, but frontcourt depth was already being tested with Socka-Nguemen out.
Junior forward Edessa Noyan has stepped up in the absence of both. In her first seven games, the University of Virginia transfer averaged 12.6 minutes and 3.3 points per game. Now, Noyan has averaged 28 minutes and 8.5 points in the last six games.
Indiana head coach Teri Moren said Socka-Nguemen and Wiseman will probably be out until after Christmas, which means that the first contest they could potentially play in is against Minnesota on Dec. 29.
But getting up to game speed against the Golden Gophers won’t be an easy task. Minnesota has a dominant presence down low in graduate center Sophie Hart. The 6-foot-5 Hart has averaged 10.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game.
Looking past Minnesota, the Big Ten will be demanding this season. The new year will commence with six straight games against AP Top 25 opponents for the Hoosiers: No. 24 Michigan State, No. 7 Maryland, No. 23 Nebraska, No. 11 Iowa, No. 22 Washington and No. 21 Ohio State.
“The Big Ten is incredible,” Moren said. “Night in and night out is going to be, it’s a tremendous challenge for us.”
That challenge can be seen in Indiana's losing projections in its next nine games on Torvik. The Hoosiers’ closest projected game is a one-point loss to Purdue on Jan. 25, but they are projected to be four-plus point underdogs in every other game until a Feb. 1 showdown against Northwestern.
Now the question is: Can Indiana withstand January?
With the Illinois game being our only datapoint in the Big Ten, the answer leans toward no. The Fighting Illini rank 33rd in the NET — Indiana’s 49 — but are No. 10 in the conference in that metric.
It’s an eye-catching statistic to show how good the Big Ten has been this season. But for Indiana, that doesn’t spell good fortunes to come.
The Hoosiers were dominated 78-57 by Illinois, and at no point in that contest was Indiana even close to winning. So, when the Hoosiers match up against UCLA, Michigan or Maryland — teams that all rank top 10 in NET — it will be a tall task to come out victorious.
But away from my negativity, Indiana now has eight days to get ready for its next game. A contest in Bloomington and inside an arena that has never seen the Hoosiers lose a game this season.
“I think it’s a good break for us,” Ciezki said. “Just to separate non-con to Big Ten, because there is a change of urgency and importance to every single game in the Big Ten.”
Indiana has a chance to prove doubters wrong, and a win against Minnesota can be the start.
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.
