The addition of freshman guard Tyra Buss and a deeper rotation of guards has taken some of that weight off of Brooks’ shoulders.
This season, she’s one of four Hoosiers averaging in the double-digits in scoring.
The adjustment has allowed Brooks to step into a leadership role for the Hoosiers, something that caught IU Coach Teri Moren’s attention at the end of the Hoosiers’ game against Boston College last week.
Brooks shot 8-of-12 for 21 points in the game, but she provided more than what the box score could tell you, Moren said.
“There’s no doubt that at the end of that game against BC, she was not going to be denied,” the first-year IU coach said. “She was not going to walk out of there without winning that basketball game.”
Brooks will lead the Hoosiers in their second road game of the season Sunday against Milwaukee.
IU will have two more non-conference games, Milwaukee and Oakland, on Dec. 20 before opening Big Ten play after Christmas. Moren said going on the road for back-to-back games will be important for her team, which has played eight of nine games at Assembly Hall this season.
Moren hasn’t liked the way her team sometimes reverts back to old habits against less talented teams. The Hoosiers have especially struggled in the rebounding category, and Moren said she wants to see more on the defensive end.
After a day off practice Thursday, those are the two main focuses going into the weekend.
“That’s a sore subject for us,” Moren said of her team’s rebounding. “We knew that in spite of getting the win and pretty convincingly pulling away there, it still is a subject matter that we continue to talk about.”
On Sunday, the IU defense will look to contain junior forward Ashley Green, who is scoring 22.6 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. Green is the size of a typical small forward at 5-foot-11 but plays primarily on the perimeter for the Panthers.
IU had the task of stopping 18-point-per-game scorer Haley Seibert on Wednesday, holding her to 11 points, but Seibert was just 5-foot-5.
Green had her best game of the season in the opener against North Dakota State, scoring 36 points and pulling down 15 rebounds. She followed that with a 30-point performance the following week.
The Hoosiers’ balanced offensive attack will look to combat Green’s dominance.
Having so many players who can come in for IU’s starting guards and not see a lapse in intensity is a good problem to have, Moren said.
Through nine games, IU has had five different players lead in scoring.
“The nice thing (is), I think we’ve taken some of the pressure off Larryn, where she doesn’t feel like she has to score 18 to 20 points a night for us to win ball games,” Moren said. “We’re getting a nice balance scoring from a lot of our perimeter players. We have the luxury of some unique pieces.”
