The Hoosiers were victims of a massive comeback Sunday at Auburn. Thursday, they were trying to mount one of their own.
With 3:23 left to play in the third quarter, the North Carolina State Wolfpack had their lead out to 19. The Hoosiers, however, kept clawing back, ending the quarter on a 10-0 run.
Suddenly the Hoosiers were on a 19-3 run. It was nearly the polar-opposite of their game at Auburn. There was just one difference, they couldn’t complete the comeback.
Even with a career high 38-point performance from IU junior Tyra Buss, the Hoosiers fell to the Wolfpack on Thursday at Reynolds Coliseum, 84-70, in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
“We got ourselves in too big in a hole early on,” IU assistant coach Rhet Wierzba said on the IU radio postgame show. “It felt like we were not getting hustle plays, they were getting some extra rebounds, and they got us out in transition.”
If there was one bright spot, it was Buss’s performance. She moved up the all-time IU scoring list to 19, tying Dawn Douglas’ mark of 1,128 points.
The junior also turned in the fourth-best scoring performance in school history, finishing with 38 points before she fouled out with 28 seconds left to play.
It was the Buss show all night long. She missed just four shots and keyed an important comeback, even though it fell just short. The Hoosiers could have just laid down and quit, but the resiliency of this group surfaced once again.
“She did a good job of attacking,” Wierzba said. “She shot the ball well from the perimeter, but she didn’t just settle for her perimeter shot. She was attacking, getting to the rim and creating plays for her teammates as well.”
Early on, it felt like the Hoosiers could do nothing right. They struggled shooting from the field and had trouble on the boards. NC State ended the game with 14 offensive rebounds compared to IU’s six including outrebounding the Hoosiers by 11.
IU ended the first quarter with things well within reach down just five. Once the second quarter started, NC State started to assert its will. Wolfpack forward Dominique Wilson scored 19 of her 23 points in the first half and the Hoosiers had no answer for her.
Once the third quarter started, the Hoosiers started mounting the comeback. Buss didn’t receive much help, however.
Senior guard Alexis Gassion was the only other Hoosier in double figures as she finished with 11 points.
In the end, it just wasn’t enough. IU put so much into their run and had the NC State lead down to three, but couldn’t find that extra stop on defense or extra bucket on offense to get it back to level.
“Sometimes, I think our energy is impacted by our offense,” Wierzba said. “When you’re not making shots, sometimes that lowers your energy. That’s something you have to fix because you can’t be relying on your energy. That’s something we have to pick up.”
The Hoosiers have now lost three of their last four games.
All three of those games have come on the road. They will have to try to solve their road woes next Tuesday at North Texas.
“Our defense has to pick up,” Wierzba said. “We have to pick up our ball screen defense — that has to improve. We’ve made some changes and adjustments and we just have to keep working on that.”
