The Hoosiers were lucky to hold a halftime lead after a sluggish first half on Thursday, but coming out even flatter in the second sealed their fate.
IU women’s basketball did well enough on the defensive end to beat Michigan State on the road, but when the Spartans posted the two highest-scoring quarters of the game for either team in the third and fourth quarters, the Hoosiers were unable to keep up.
A nine-point advantage in the third quarter gave Michigan State a lead it would never relinquish, and an unsuccessful attempt to mount a late comeback ultimately led IU to fall 69-60 in the Breslin Center.
Despite the Hoosiers holding star senior guard Tori Jankoska to five points in the second half, other Spartans were able to step up in her stead. Senior forward Taya Reimer led a Michigan State post that scored 16 of its 24 points in the paint in the final two quarters.
“Came out of the half, and I thought Taya Reimer had about, what, six straight buckets it felt like,” IU assistant coach Janese Banks said on the postgame radio show on WHCC 105.1 FM. “We had to make some adjustments in the second half. It worked well in our favor for a little bit and then we just fell short on some execution down the stretch.”
Reimer did make six second-half baskets, though not as rapid as Banks may have felt they were. She finished the game with 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting and collected five rebounds.
Senior Hoosier guard Alexis Gassion drew the defensive assignment on Jankoska and locked her down for the most part by holding the Big Ten’s second-leading scorer to just 5 of 18 shooting in the game.
Gassion scored just 10 points, but her defense on Jankoska forced Michigan State to shift its entire gameplan to try to score in the post.
“We knew their guards score a majority of their points,” Banks said. “We were very conscious of their guards. Not that their post players can’t score, because they are very good, but it was almost like that’s where we wanted them to beat us and then they played into that.”
Though Jankoska was largely stymied, her 3-pointer with less than a minute to go pushed the Spartans’ lead from three to six points and sealed the win.
Throughout the final quarter, junior guard Tyra Buss and junior forward Amanda Cahill attempted to spearhead a comeback, but IU could never get closer than three points behind Michigan State.
Cahill finished with a team-high 17 points as Buss nearly equaled her with 16.
On Sunday, IU will be host to No. 3 Maryland.
The Terrapins are in first place in the Big Ten and have yet to lose a game in conference play. Maryland’s only loss of the season came in a six-point defeat against No. 1 Connecticut in late December.
Senior center Brionna Jones anchors the Maryland frontcourt and leads the team in scoring with 19.4 points per game to go along with 10.4 rebounds per game.
Six different Terrapins have 11 or more blocks this season, so the Hoosiers may have to live at the 3-point line in the 12 p.m. showdown Sunday that will air on ESPN2.
“They’re not top in the country for no reason,” Banks said. “They are a very good basketball team with All-Americans and all-conference players. It’s going to be definitely a tough task, but it’s nothing that we’re scared of, nothing we can’t handle.”
