IU falls to Belmont despite late comeback

With 15 seconds to go, trailing by two, senior forward Aulani Sinclair took the inbounds pass and drove to the right wing off of a ball-screen with the game’s outcome resting in her hands.

She had a look from three to try for the win, the play that was drawn up. IU Coach Curt Miller thought she would pull the trigger.

Instead, she took one more dribble inside and took a contested 18-foot jumper. The shot was deflected and missed everything, falling into the hands of Belmont’s Jordan Coleman with 2.6 seconds to go.

Coleman was immediately fouled, made both free throws, and Belmont defeated IU 58-54 Tuesday night at Assembly Hall to give the Hoosiers their second straight loss.

“I just took it off the dribble and I saw the other girl, but I knew I had to shoot it, so I just shot it and unfortunately it missed,” Sinclair said. “It didn’t feel any different, it just missed.”

Miller said he thinks that after looking at the tape, Sinclair will realize she should have taken the 3-point shot.

“I thought it was breaking open perfectly like we wanted,” he said. “We were going to go for the win. She had a wide open three. In the heat of the battle, you can never question Aulani’s heart and desire to make that.”

The missed shot ended hopes of IU coming back from a 12-point second half deficit. IU (6-3) mounted a 12-6 run in the late stages of the second half, capped by a 3-pointer from freshman guard Nicole Bell to cut the Belmont lead to 54-52 with 2:49 to go, the closest margin since IU trailed 22-21 with 2:36 remaining in the first half.

Belmont (4-5) was led by Molly Ernst’s 16 points, including 13 first half points. Coleman added 15 total points.

Sinclair led all scorers with 19 points, but failed to score in the final 19:46 of the game. She had 17 points at the break.

“I’ve always been biased toward recruiting a lot of shooters, and I think there were 1,812 people who now understand why I like shooters and why I recruit shooters,” Miller said. “Because what we see tonight is what we see everyday in practice. We don’t have great offensive players. We are limited at the offensive end.”

With Sinclair being covered, Bell stepped into the scoring role for the Hoosiers’ second-half run. She scored 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, as all of her scoring came in the second half.

“Aulani played amazing in the first half,” Bell said. “We knew we had to step up and help her. We knew if everyone else starting stepping up and hitting shots she would get more free. We had a little urgency that we had to score.”

Outside of Sinclair, IU struggled in the first half offensively, shooting 28 percent. For the game, the Hoosiers shot 33.3 percent and made only 18-of-54 field goal attempts.

“If you can’t make shots, every single defensive possession is so important,” Miller said. “You have to win games in the high 40s and 50s and that is just very, very unrealistic most nights.”