Hoosiers hope to break streak

Any losing streak is tough. The women’s basketball team is on a three-game one, having lost four of its last five games. IU hopes to break its longest losing streak tonight against Michigan State (17-7, 10-3) at Assembly Hall.

IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said she knows there is no quit in the Hoosiers (15-7, 8-5).

“I think this is a great team,” she said. “This is a team that is resilient. They certainly understand that staying in the race is how you become better.”

Some of the Hoosiers’ struggles have been attributed to how teams are now defending against them.

“They are letting us shoot the ball more on the perimeter,” she said. “They are clogging the middle and making our shooters shoot the ball, and our shooters haven’t been looking to shoot the ball, but that won’t be a choice anymore.”

In the last five games, the Hoosiers have shot 31.9 percent.

“They are getting overzealous, some of them,” Legette-Jack said. “It’s not all of them. It’s just certain kids. Some of them are leaning back, some leaning forward, so we are just trying to adjust them individually.”

Coming into tonight’s game against Michigan State – the second-best team in the Big Ten – the Hoosiers spent this week’s practice working on what made them successful earlier in the season.

IU defeated the Spartans 62-48 Dec. 29 on the road.

“It’s just getting back to where we were,” senior forward Amber Jackson said. “We’ve watched a lot of film about Michigan State, of how we played them the last time and how they’ve been playing. We know we really have to bring it.”

Jackson has seen defenses change their approaches toward defending her since the beginning of the season. Legette-Jack has told Jackson to not be afraid to use her jump shot.

“Amber has a great shot,” she said. “She is a really good free throw jump shooter, but she loves the confrontation, which I also loved as a player, and she wants to get in there and mix it up. Sometimes you just have to get those easy buckets to make them play you, and then they will become easier to go down.”

Jackson agreed with Legette-Jack’s assessment.

“I’m definitely looking to take what I have, ‘cause a lot of times during the first half of the season and even last year, teams are looking for me to go to the goal,” she said.

“Teams are playing me for that, so if they give me an open shot, I just need to take that, if they give me a drive, take that, versus taking a shot that isn’t open. I’m definitely confident taking the shot – it’s the matter of making it.”

Jackson said tonight’s game could not come soon enough, as her teammates are ready to be back on the court and play to their capabilities.

“We are obviously anxious to be back playing,” she said. “The season is dwindling down and for the majority of us, myself, Kim (Roberson), Whitney (Thomas) and Lydia (Serfling), this is our last go-around. We have five games left and one guaranteed game in the Big Ten Conference Tournament, and we are really anxious to get it going right.”