Bigger teams such as Purdue and Rutgers have been able to control the game inside and cruise to ?comfortable victories.
IU gives notable minutes to only three players who are taller than 6 feet, and only sophomore Jenn ?Anderson would be described as a true big.
Freshman Amanda Cahill plays a stretch game and has a thin frame, and sophomore Lyndsay Leikem spends a good portion of her time on the perimeter.
No. 23 Minnesota (15-2, 4-1), on the other hand, will be trotting out two post players, Amanda Zahui B. and Shae Kelly, 3 p.m. Sunday when IU (12-4, 2-3) travels to Minnesota. Both of these players have IU Coach Teri Moren game-planning around them.
“It’s a tall task for a lot of reasons,” Moren said. “Those two, in themselves, they present problems for us ?defensively.”
Moren said the Hoosiers will be working to get Zahui B. out of her comfort zone. The goal is to try to have her catch the ball outside and keep her out of the lane. That way she will have to face up and take jumpers instead of working inside and getting easy layups.
They may need to bring help from the backside when she has the ball, and they might end up playing some zone defense, Moren said.
While Zahui B. is a 6-foot-5 center who has averaged 19.5 points and 15.3 rebounds in four conference games, Kelley is 6-foot-1 and Moren said she is athletic, can shoot and ?is able to drive to the basket.
Moren also said IU has no good matchup for Kelley, but Cahill will be their best bet.
“I just have to do the little things that my coaches tell me and that I work on in practice and help the team out as much as I can,” Cahill said.
These little things included making sure she boxes out and gets in good position.
The Hoosier lineup has been in a state of flux lately. Sophomore guards Larryn Brooks and Taylor Agler both did not start in their last game Jan. 8 due to sickness and injury, respectively. Moren said Brooks and Agler are both back to 100 percent now, but it is not certain if the lineup will go back to normal.
Sophomore Alexis Gassion may be a better matchup on the perimeter with her size and intensity. She started in place of Agler against Wisconsin and had 16 rebounds.
This will only be the Hoosiers’ fifth road test of the season, and they lost their last road test 86-64 to Purdue.
“Our job is to go up there and kind of forget about that and focus on what we are there to do,” Moren said.
