COLLEGE PARK, Md. — In multiple games this season, Indiana women’s basketball has been turnover prone. The Hoosiers’ highest total was against Marshall University on Nov. 11, when they committed 28 turnovers. And in Indiana’s first three Big Ten games, the Hoosiers averaged 19 per contest.
With Indiana matching up Sunday against No. 7 Maryland — a team that has forced opponents to make 21.6 turnovers per game — the turnover issues continued to hurt the Hoosiers.
Indiana finished the contest with 21 turnovers, which tied the Hoosiers’ second most in a game this season. As a result, Indiana lost its fourth Big Ten game of the season — and third game in a row — 82-67 to the Terrapins.
Indiana’s troubles on offense stemmed from the Terrapins’ sustained ball pressure throughout the contest.
“I think we’re going to look back and be very, very frustrated,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said postgame Sunday, “by some of the times that we just literally gave them the ball, and they were able to go down and get an easy layup.”
Maryland finished the game with 25 points off turnovers and 38 points in the paint, two totals that outmatched Indiana’s amounts. The Hoosiers only caused 11 turnovers for the Terrapins, turning their giveaways into 13 points.
For Maryland, the game plan was simple: shut down Indiana senior guard Shay Ciezki.
“We made life difficult,” Maryland head coach Brenda Frese said postgame. “Shay only got nine shots up compared to what she’s been having to do, and we made other people have to beat us.”
Ciezki’s nine shots taken were the second-lowest amount the Buffalo, New York, native has taken in a game this season and only the second time she had less than 10 shots in a game.
Ciezki finished with 17 points — thanks to a 6-for-7 performance from the free throw line — extending her streak of not scoring 20-plus points to four straight games.
Other than Ciezki, Indiana’s chances of beating Maryland were helped by a 20-point performance from freshman forward Maya Makalusky. She drained six 3-pointers, which tied her season-high.
However, Indiana didn’t receive much help from any other Hoosier in the scoring department.
Redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont had 11 points, but a team-high five turnovers counteracted her contributions. Sophomore forward Zania Socka-Nguemen returned to the lineup since last playing on Nov. 28, but she picked up four fouls before the end of the second quarter.
Socka-Nguemen finished the contest with only four points in 17 minutes on Gary Williams Court. But her less-than-stellar performance wasn’t aided by junior forward Edessa Noyan finishing with a similar stat line: four points and four fouls.
The turnovers Maryland caused helped the Terrapins finish with 14 more attempts from the floor and four more free throws than Indiana. Junior guard Oluchi Okananwa compiled a season-high 34 points, with many of her wide-open shots happening because the Hoosiers were a step slow and missed assignments on defense after trying to grind for open attempts on the offensive end.
Indiana slowed down the barrage of turnovers in the second half — 16 turnovers in the first half, five in the second — but the damage to the Hoosiers’ confidence was already done.
Indiana came out of halftime only down 39-32, but in just under four minutes, the game seemed all but over. The Hoosiers gave up a 12-0 scoring run to Maryland to open the second half, which has been a trend for Indiana recently.
“There was going to be more (turnovers) ... that we’re just self-inflicted,” Moren said. “Just careless. You just can’t do that against a team like Maryland. You can’t do that against any team in the Big Ten.”
I’ve gone on and on about the bleak chances Indiana has in the Big Ten this season based on its previous results to start conference play. But the Hoosiers looked like a sloppier team compared to Maryland on Sunday.
Before the game, the XFINITY Center celebrated Maryland’s 2006 NCAA championship team — an achievement that the women’s basketball team in Bloomington hasn’t been close to reaching — and the difference between the two programs was shown on the court.
The Terrapins can comfortably look ahead to their matchups in March and the feeling of winning a game — or games — in the NCAA Tournament. But Indiana doesn’t have the same luxury. The Hoosiers stand at 0-4 in the Big Ten this season, the worst start to conference play since 2011-12.
The Hoosiers finished considerably worse that season, 6-24, than this year, but the point still stands. Indiana must change its mentality with 14 games remaining on the schedule, especially with No. 20 Nebraska on Thursday.
“We cannot be result oriented,” Moren said postgame. “We have to be process oriented, and we just got to keep chipping away and continue to get better.”
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.
