Lady Hoosiers fall short against Boilermakers

Finding themselves down just six at halftime, the IU women’s basketball team was in striking distance of an upset of No. 14 Purdue Thursday night in West Lafayette, hoping to beat its rival for the first time in eight tries.

Time and time again, the Boilermaker frontcourt deflated any of hopes of that happening.

Purdue pounded the Hosiers 22-8 on the offensive glass and 45-30 overall, seemingly grabbing an offensive rebound every time IU played a tough defensive sequence, and beat IU 59-42 at Mackey Arena.

“It was a very physical game,” IU Coach Curt Miller said. “They let a lot of contact go around the rim and because of that, it was a tough finishing night for post players.”

The Hoosiers (10-11, 1-7 Big Ten) held the Boilermakers’ top three scorers to a combined 15 points on 6-of-30 shooting but couldn’t contain Purdue’s supporting cast.

“We did a fantastic job on Courtney Moses tonight and Drey Mingo, and I can’t be more proud,” Miller said. “Now, Purdue is at a state of our program unlike ours where their depth is very dangerous, and you have to give April Wilson and Taylor Manuel, their talented freshman class, credit for stepping up.”

Wilson scored 12 points on 3-of-5 shooting in 24 minutes off the bench, Manuel added 11 and senior Sam Osterello led the way with 14 points and 10 rebounds to carry the Boilers (18-3, 7-1).

Linda Rubene paced the Hoosiers with 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting and leading scorer Aulani Sinclair got back on track by scoring 11 (4-of-9), but the rest of the team shot 22 percent (7-of-31) from the field.

IU executed its offense well in the first half, getting 14 points in the paint by exploiting the Boilermaker’s aggressive perimeter defense and hitting post players on slips to the basket.

The Hoosiers went to the locker room down just 32-26 at the break.

Defensively, the Hoosiers limited the Boilers to nearly 11 points below their season average and 32 percent shooting.

Good defense, which has become a staple of this IU team — they are the only Big Ten team to not allow 70 points to a conference opponent — was negated by sloppy play and mental errors, particularly to open the second half.

However, the Hoosiers started the second half with four turnovers in their first nine possessions. They missed their first seven shots from the floor and shot just 29 percent (6-of-21) in the period.

IU committed 20 turnovers, 13 in the second half, leading to 23 points off turnovers for the Boilermakers.

The team did not score their first points of the second half until Sinclair was fouled and split a pair of free throws to make it 36-27 IU 14:48 remaining.

“Just people when they’re open — gotta just step up, hit shots,” Sinclair said.  “Milika (Taufa) and Linda (Rubene) did a good job tonight, just shooting the three and having the confidence to shoot it when they’re open.”

A 3-pointer from the left wing by Sinclair got the Hoosiers back within six, 38-32 Purdue, with 12:14 to go. It was as close as they would get the rest of the game.

Mingo, Purdue’s second-leading scorer at 12.5 points per game, got her only points of the game when she buried a three with 10:29 to go.

The make put the Boilers up 41-32, and they would not lead by less than that margin the rest of the way.

Junior starting point guard is out indefinitely with a broken left wrist. Freshman Nicole Bell started in her place and scored four points on 2-of-7 shooting in a career-high 38 minutes.