With 43 seconds remaining Thursday night, IU Coach Curt Miller asked his team to foul to stop the clock.
He wasn't trying to stretch the game. He didn't want to try to gain extra possessions.
He wanted the clock to stop so senior guard Jasmine McGhee could get the recognition from the small contingent of IU fans that he felt she deserved.
He had done the same thing for senior forward Aulani Sinclair just 39 seconds earlier.
During that stoppage of play, McGhee came out and hugged Miller, then went down the bench one-by-one receiving hugs from her teammates. Senior forward Linda Rubene followed her.
Forty-three seconds later, all three of their careers came to a screeching halt with a 67-40 loss to Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
Tears welled up in Rubene's eyes. McGhee stared blankly at the court. Sinclair finally caught her breath after a physically exhausting season.
"I'm really proud of our senior class," Miller said. "They did a lot of things to help create a new culture and start things in a positive direction in our tenure."
McGhee did everything she could to try to play one more game in the cream and crimson. She scored 12 points, the only Hoosier to reach double figures, and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds.
When her team fell down 12-0 early, she turned to her teammates after a turnover and yelled, "Let's go! Let's go!"
Her eyes grew wide.
"I just think I wanted to win," she said. "And me being a senior, I didn't want this to be my last year. I just know that I just tried to get my teammates going and maybe we can make a run. And unfortunately it didn't happen, but I'm just grateful for the opportunity that I've been playing here."
McGhee spent most of the night running around on defense and fighting through screens to attempt to stick on Michigan's leading-scorer Kate Thompson. Once, she nearly bowled over a player trying to fight through the screen.
Thompson only scored eight points, and only managed to score one basket with McGhee guarding her.
"Even though Jasmine McGhee did not -- not only didn't win the defensive player of the year award, didn't make the defensive team, and there's not a better defender in this league," Miller said.
"Jazz did that to the best players on every team all year long. She doesn't get a lot of credit for it because we don't win a lot of games and we're not a big steal team and play a hokey defense. We're a pretty packed line and pretty conservative, so she doesn't get a lot of credit."
Despite dispensing most of her energy on the defensive end, McGhee had to pick up the slack on the offensive end, too. Sinclair, the team's leading scorer and one of the best in the program's history, struggled to find her shooting touch, finishing the night 1-11 from the field and scoring just four points.
McGhee shouldered the burden.
Again, her eyes opened up, as she routinely implored her team to make something happen.
"She was trying the best she could to get her fellow seniors and her teammates to come with her with a passion that she was playing with," Miller said.
But in the end, no matter what McGhee said, she could not make the team go. Sometimes, she even forced the issue too much.
"As hard and as passionate that Jasmine tried to get her teammates to come on, we can do this and we believed we had a good game plan coming into tonight, there were stretches that that passion -- she tried too hard," Miller said. "And she tried to do too much, which unfortunately got us out of rhythm sometimes even more. And you can't fault her for that."
Sitting at the podium after the game, McGhee's eyes appeared as if they had just been dried. She ventured a quick grin with the mention of her nickname, "Jazz," but then returned to a similar look of blankness that she showcased when the final buzzer sounded.
In the locker room after the game, she sat next to Chaplin and checked her phone while her teammates went through interviews.
Sinclair wore a smile as soon as the discussion turned to the coming years and returning to see the program hang banners for the women's team.
For now, those two have done all they can do for the program. They combined for 1,853 points during their time at IU.
"I'm really proud of our seniors and sorry they had to go out on that note," Miller said. "But they've really helped us change the culture."
McGhee continued talking to Chaplin, now laughing out loud about a text message she had received.
That's all that's left for McGhee to do now.
"The improvements we made this year is a great look for Indiana's women's basketball," redshirt senior center Sasha Chaplin said. "And that's all we're trying to do is establish this program and bring it to the national level and show everyone that Indiana is here to compete in women's basketball"
