Team looks to end two streaks

The IU women’s basketball team will attempt to end two separate streaks Sunday when Iowa comes to Assembly Hall.

First and foremost, IU (5-18, 0-10 Big Ten) will try to end its 10-game losing streak. The streak started after the Hoosiers won back-to-back games against Colorado State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Since then, they have played 10 Big Ten games against nine separate foes and lost to all of them.

The other streak IU will try to break is its five-game losing skid to Iowa (12-10, 4-5) since Jan. 4 2009, the last time the Hoosiers beat the Hawkeyes. Indiana has lost to Iowa 12 times throughout the past 15 matchups between the two schools, dating back to the 2003-04 season.

Coming off a loss at Northwestern on Sunday, IU Coach Felisha Legette-Jack said her team can learn and grow from the disappointment.

“We haven’t won a lot of games, but these guys are doing the best they can,” she said. “Sasha (Chaplin) showed her ability to score against a strong post presence versus Northwestern. I thought that Jasmine (McGhee)’s impact was a lot better ... Turnovers were at a minimum.”

Legette-Jack also said she hopes her squad can keep decreasing its turnovers. In the four games leading up to and including the Northwestern game, the team’s turnovers went from 25 to 21 to 19 to 16 to 15.

Two of the biggest differences between the two teams is experience and consistency.
Through its 23 games so far, Iowa has started the same five players for every contest: seniors Kamille Wahlin and Kelly Krei, juniors Jaime Printy and Morgan Johnson and freshman Samantha Logic. The Hawkeyes have four seniors and three juniors on their squad.

Through their 23 games, the Hoosiers have used nine different starting lineups. Their most used group has been employed only eight times and consists of senior Danilsa Andujar, juniors Chaplin, McGhee and Aulani Sinclair and sophomore Andrea Newbauer.

Andujar, Chaplin and Sinclair are the only three players for the Hoosiers who had been in Bloomington for at least two full seasons before the 2011-12 campaign began.
Legette-Jack said the more recently settled starting lineup of the five mentioned above was decided by their performance in practice.

“They settled in on it,” she said. “I think the people that earn the right to start should be the people that start ... Those five people made that effort in practice to prove that they were the ones supposed to start the game.”

Iowa’s junior duo of Printy and Johnson will keep IU’s hands full. Printy leads the team in scoring with 17.3 per game, and her 90.2 free throw percentage ranks eighth nationally.

Johnson is second on the team with 14.1 points per game. Her 54.6 field goal percentage and 2.3 blocks per game rank 18th and 35th in the nation, respectively.

The possibility of extending a losing streak to 10 could concern most coaches, but Legette-Jack said she isn’t worrying just yet.

“I’m confident in all my kids,” she said.