IU women's basketball team starts season with exhibition

After playing against her teammates in practice during the last two months, graduate student center Sasha Chaplin is looking forward to a new challenge and seeing where her team stands. 

“We’ve been practicing for a while now,” she said. “So it will be finally good to go out there and play against someone other than ourselves.”

The IU women’s basketball team’s season will tip off tonight at home in an exhibition against the Georgetown (Kentucky) Tigers.

Despite being an exhibition game, IU Coach Curt Miller said the team is looking forward to playing an opponent that doesn’t know the team’s plays.

“We cheat each other when we play against ourselves,” he said. “So it’s nice to play against someone who’s not going to know every counter and everything that we’re looking for.”

Georgetown College, an NAIA school, finished 23-10 last season and lost to Lubbock Christian in the second round of the NAIA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship.

“To be able to play a really good team like Georgetown that went deep into the NAIA National Championships last year and has four of their five starters back is a really good test out of the gate,” Miller said. “We’re playing against a very, very talented team.”

IU sophomore forward Kaila Hulls will be playing in her first college game.

Hulls, who transferred from Bowling Green last year, tore her ACL in her freshman year with the Falcons before the season started.

Last year, after transferring to IU, she tore her ACL again during an August conditioning drill.

“I’m kind of nervous, but I just gotta come out and do what I can,” Hulls said.

Miller said Hulls has not played in a competitive game since high school in 2011.

“It’s been pretty amazing that it’s that long,” Miller said. “All of her hard work has paid off to get back to this point. To do it in her hometown, in a place she dreamed of being ... we’re really excited for her.”

The Hoosiers’ youth will also be on display for the first time in front of Hoosier
Nation.

IU has seven freshmen and 10 underclassmen total on its roster.

“We do have nine players that will probably play that have never worn an Indiana uniform,” Miller said.

Miller said he and his staff will try some things in the exhibition game that maybe they wouldn’t try in a regular season game.

“It’s conceivable that we could start four kids that did not play last year in our program,” Miller said. “We want to win the game, but we are also going to play different combinations and try different people with each other.”

This summer, Georgetown College picked up Teonia McCune, a 6-foot-5 transfer student from Wright State.

Miller said he doesn’t expect McCune to be a big part of Georgetown’s game plan early.

He is more concerned with their two All-Americans and veteran guards.

“We match up better with a true low post like McCune, and so, when she’s in, I feel better that she’s a more traditional post (player),” Miller said.

“I worry more about their undersized post because we’re not a great matchup for them.”

Hulls said the game is going to be a wake up call for the team and that it will need to be fired up from the start.

“They’re a veteran team, and we’re a very young team,” she said. “So that’s going to be our biggest challenge in matching their intensity.”

Miller wants to see how hard the team competes tonight in addition to looking for combinations of players that gel and work together.

“I want to get to the end of the game, regardless of how sloppy it is, how great execution is, not questioning that we played hard,” he said.

Chaplin said the game will be a good test to let the nervousness go.

“This game is huge for us,” Chaplin said. “Regardless of the outcome, we just want to come out and play Indiana basketball.”

Follow reporter Stuart Jackson on Twitter @Stuart_Jackson1.