With one minute and 17 seconds remaining in the first half of Indiana women’s basketball’s contest against Nebraska in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, the Hoosiers were facing at a 20-point deficit.
The largely Hoosier crowd in Indianapolis was deflated, just like the team they were cheering for on the court.
But Indiana looked like a different team out of the locker room. They turned No. 12-seeded Nebraska's 20-point lead into just eight points by the end of the third quarter. Then, that eight-point deficit turned into a 72-69 win for No. 13-seeded Indiana on Wednesday inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
“I think that we had a lot of talks in huddles, at halftime, just saying how much we want it and how much we worked for this, for this game,” Indiana senior guard Shay Ciezki said postgame. “I don't think a team's hungrier than a team trying to get in the tournament, and that's what we're playing for right now.”
Indiana’s deficit started at tipoff. Nebraska sped off to a 6-0 lead throughout the first minute and a half of the contest and didn’t slow down. The Cornhuskers were efficient in the paint, scoring 10 of their first 18 points from that space.
An 8-0 Nebraska run in the middle of the first quarter put the Cornhuskers up by 16 points with just over two and a half minutes to go in the period. The Hoosiers’ deficit grew to 20 points in the second quarter, but a 3-pointer from Ciezki put Indiana down by 17 at halftime.
Nebraska was shooting 51.4% from the field at the break compared to Indiana’s 38.7% clip. Nebraska’s sophomore forward Amiah Hargrove and sophomore guard Britt Prince both reached double-figure scoring through two periods with 19 and 13 points, respectively.
At that point, Ciezki — who’s led the Hoosier’s offense throughout the season, averaging 23.2 points per game — had only reached 11 points and was Indiana’s lone double-digit scorer.
“They were frickin’ on fire in that first quarter,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said.
But Moren’s squad regrouped. Little by little, Nebraska’s lead dwindled.
The Hoosiers’ defense allowed the Cornhuskers to score just four baskets in the third period. Indiana’s offense was firing, too. A 10-0 run in the third quarter brought Nebraska’s lead to single digits for the first time since midway through the first period, but the final frame still remained.
Indiana has struggled in late game situations throughout the season. It failed to take advantage of a third quarter surge, recording a five-point loss to Nebraska on Jan. 8 after it couldn’t take advantage of a strong third quarter. Its three-point loss to Iowa on Jan. 11 was riddled with fourth-quarter miscues. It’s something that plagued the Hoosiers throughout its 10-game losing streak to begin Big Ten play.
But the Hoosiers’ momentum remained.
Ciezki intercepted a pass from Prince, which Indiana turned into points with a layup from junior forward Edessa Noyan with 8:16 remaining on the clock. It cut Nebraska’s lead to six.
The Cornhuskers responded with a bucket of their own, but a layup and successful three-point play from freshman forward Nevaeh Caffey put the Hoosiers within three points.
The two squads continued to go back and forth before a 3-pointer from Indiana redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont sparked something in the Hoosiers with just under two and a half minutes to play in the contest.
It put Indiana within four points, and a layup from freshman forward Maya Makalusky put the Hoosiers two points behind the Cornhuskers. Then, Beaumont did it again. She drained a 3-pointer off a pass from Noyan, giving Indiana its first lead of the contest — a lead it would not relinquish with just over a minute left in the game.
“If we’re going to lose, I’m going to go down swinging,” Beaumont said. “That kind of was my mentality in the fourth.”
The comeback resembled the Hoosiers’ progression through their Big Ten slate. An 0-10 start to conference play brought desperation for Moren’s young and inexperienced roster. But they kept going. A win over Northwestern on Feb. 1 was Indiana’s first step in making a run toward the Big Ten Tournament.
The Hoosiers won their next two, but those were followed by two losses to USC and UCLA in Los Angeles. When Indiana returned to Bloomington, it recorded a bounce-back win over Oregon. Then a win at Rutgers and against Penn State closed the Hoosiers’ regular season and sealed a spot in the conference tournament, which they were on the outside looking in on for the first part of Big Ten play.
“I'm a firm believer in you can't succeed until you fail,” Ciezki said. “And I think that we hit a rough stretch in the beginning of the Big Ten play. Obviously being 0-10, that's not how you want to start it, but I truly believe that those losses led us to win this game today.”
With the win, Indiana earned a contest against No. 5-seeded Ohio State on Thursday. The Buckeyes defeated the Hoosiers 81-67 on Jan. 22 in Columbus.
That contest was another example of a Hoosiers’ second-half collapse. After holding a 10-point lead at halftime, Indiana let Ohio State crawl back in the third quarter. It presents another opportunity for the Hoosiers to get redemption. To prove their resilience. To showcase their development.
It won’t be an easy feat against an Ohio State squad that sits at 13-5 in the conference, but Indiana has a chance to keep going in the Big Ten Tournament, and that’s all it needed to get there in the first place.
“It would have been really easy for us to walk out and just say it wasn't going to be our day,” Moren said. “But they had that fighting spirit.”
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.
