Hoosiers take winning streak to Michigan

It’s been a big week and a half for the IU women’s basketball team. In the last 10 days, they’ve won three straight Big Ten games – two on the road and another in double-overtime – defeated rival Purdue and had junior forward Whitney Thomas named Big Ten Player of the Week for her three double-doubles over the winning streak. \nThe team next heads to Michigan to take on the Wolverines in their fourth road conference game in their last five – and they have no intention of cooling off up north.\nMichigan will certainly be no roll-over, however. The resurgent Wolverines stand at 11-6 under first-year head coach Kevin Borseth, who came to Ann Arbor from Wisconsin-Green Bay. \nBorseth has his team at 4-3 in the Big Ten, already eclipsing last season’s Big Ten win total by one victory. Their 11 wins also give the Wolverines one victory more than they had all of last season. \nLeading the way for the Wolverines are Krista Phillips and Jessica Minnfield, who average 10.6 and 9.8 points per game, respectively. Minnfield, a 5-foot-5 guard, is also shooting 42 percent from behind the arc on the year. \nPhillips, who stands at 6-foot-6 and could present problems for the Hoosiers inside, isn’t the first post Michigan-based player the Hoosiers have had to battle recently.\nIn their 70-56 win over Michigan State on Sunday, IU battled the Spartans’ 6-foot-9 center Allyssa DeHaan, who scored 15 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the contest. Despite her scoring and the Spartans’ 16-point advantage in the paint, Thomas and junior forward Amber Jackson combined for 32 points and 20 boards of their own, and the Hoosiers out-rebounded Michigan State 48-36.\nMichigan is also a markedly dangerous team from behind the arc. The Wolverines are first in the conference in made 3-pointers with 112 through just 17 games, an average of 6.59 made 3-point shots a game. \nBorseth said his team doesn’t focus on 3-point shooting, but those are simply the best shots they get. \n“People think we just want to shoot threes,” Borseth said in a Tuesday teleconference. “The fact that we’re shooting a number of threes is probably generated from the fact that people are giving us threes.”\nIU will counter, as they have so often this year, with a balanced attack that features four players scoring in double digits. At the top of the stat sheet is sophomore point guard Jamie Braun, who averages 14.6 points per game.\nIU coach Felisha Legette-Jack called Braun a “freshman” in the sense that she is still learning the position, but she said in a Tuesday teleconference that the Marshfield, Wis., native is moving from simply understanding her position to embracing her role as a leader.\n“Jamie Braun has done a tremendous job in the locker room communicating with the team on what we need to do,” Legette-Jack said in the teleconference Tuesday. \nAgainst Michigan State, IU rode a big second half to their impressive road victory. They also outscored Purdue by 11 points in the second half in West Lafayette.\nLegette-Jack said her team’s second-half performances of late are due to her team’s attitude coming out of the locker room at halftime. \n“We talk about staying in the moment,” Legette-Jack said. “Our kids have decided that they’re not going to be denied.”\nIU split their season series with Michigan last year, winning at home before losing a two-point game in Ann Arbor.