On Saturday, Indiana women’s basketball head coach Teri Moren said her squad was “punched in the mouth” against Illinois. The Hoosiers fell behind early in the first quarter and were never able to mount a comeback. 28-12, 45-23, 68-32 and 78-57 appeared on the scoreboard in the State Farm Center when the buzzer sounded at the end of every quarter.
Obviously, Indiana lost the points battle, but the Hoosiers were also behind the Fighting Illini in almost every statistical category. Illinois outrebounded Indiana by nine, had 11 more assists, nine less turnovers and were 12.1 percentage points better from the field.
It was an abysmal performance that couldn’t be continued into the Hoosiers’ next game against the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“The biggest thing that we wanted to really attack in those practices was our energy and our effort,” Indiana senior guard Shay Ciezki said postgame Thursday. “I think the whole team can say that it was probably one of the hardest two practices that we’ve had this season.”
The change during the four days worked in favor of Indiana, as the Hoosiers cruised to a 98-54 victory against ULM on Thursday.
The most obvious of those changes was the addition of freshman forward Maya Makalusky into the starting lineup for sophomore guard Valentyna Kadlecova. And the swap worked for Indiana.
Makalusky finished Thursday’s contest with a career-high 22 points on an 8-for-12 performance from the field — including a career-high six made 3-pointers. She also provided four rebounds and three assists, but the part of her game that caught Moren’s eye was a charge to open the game.
“She started the game with the charge, which was very impressive,” Moren said postgame. “I think she knew the task, what we needed her to do, but it was nice to see her shoot as well as she did.”
Along with Makalusky, the other freshman, guard Nevaeh Caffey, also showed an improved effort since Saturday. With 5:20 on the clock in the first quarter, Caffey dove for a loose ball after a missed shot from ULM. Her effort rewarded Indiana with the ball.
The Hoosiers couldn’t score on the other end of the floor, but they showed an improvement in effort from the jump ball. Indiana took a 20-12 lead at the end of the first quarter and was up 42-23 at halftime.
And the Hoosiers kept their foot on the pedal throughout the rest of the game. They outscored ULM by six in the third quarter and 19 in the fourth. With the recurring slow starts for Indiana this season, the Hoosiers needed a game where they dominated for all 40 minutes — which they did on Thursday.
“I thought our effort for most of the game, if not all of it, was really good,” Moren said postgame. “We want to be really consistent with that.”
Indiana needed that effort against a ULM team that came into Thursday’s game averaging over 21 turnovers forced. However, the Warhawks only forced 16 takeaways — 12 of which came in the first half — against the Hoosiers.
Along with not giving away the ball, Indiana eclipsed the 20-assist mark for the first time this season, a point of emphasis from Moren.
“Excited about the 20 assists,” Moren said postgame. “We finally got to it because it’s been a while.”
The only times this season that Indiana was close to the mark were 15 against the University of Illinois Chicago on Nov. 7 and 17 against Florida Gulf Coast University on Nov. 25. Every other game saw the Hoosiers hover around nine to 14 assists.
Redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont led the way for Indiana in assists Thursday. She came into the contest tied with Ciezki at 31 through 10 games — after being in the lead for most of the season — but Beaumont reclaimed the crown with five assists to Ciezki’s two.
Indiana’s assists helped reinvigorate an offense stagnant since a 106-95 loss to then-No. 10 Iowa State University. It was 12 assists in that game, nine against Western Michigan and another 12 against Illinois.
But on Thursday, Indiana’s offense looked more confident. The Hoosiers’ bench finished with a combined 13 points. A big reason why was Indiana’s ability to push past ULM’s press. Multiple times, the Hoosiers pushed the pace and found easy layups at the basket. The effort helped Indiana finish with 23 fastbreak points, which tied its highest mark this season.
And the increase in effort can be traced back to the hard practices this week.
“After the Illinois game ... we went back to a lot of the toughness drills that we started with in preseason,” Moren said postgame. “... We were just trying to regain the habit of being competitive and regain the habit of playing with an extra effort.”
On Thursday, the “extra effort” was the catalyst for another nonconference win for Indiana, but the Hoosiers need to carry that effort into future games — especially their Big Ten schedule.
The conference had nine teams ranked in the Associated Press Poll on Dec. 8, the second time in Big Ten history that has happened. Indiana can’t look past Eastern Michigan University on Sunday and Western Carolina University on Dec. 21. But facing an uphill battle in conference, a little effort can go a long way for Indiana this season.
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.
