Entering Wednesday night’s home game against Rutgers, IU had only kept one team below 50 points during the 2015-16 season. The season before that, it only kept three teams below 50 points.
But Rutgers, who averaged 60.9 points per game this season, shot just 36 percent from the field for 48 points on the scoreboard. This defense helped IU improve its home record to 9-0 in a 64-48 win against Rutgers.
“I’m a defensive-minded coach,” IU Coach Teri Moren said. “Our kids have really bought into it. Defense has been the reason we’ve won close games, and defense is the reason we won tonight.”
After returning from Evanston, Illinois, and the first Big Ten road win of the season against No. 20 Northwestern, IU wanted to reduce the number of points the opponents were scoring. The Wildcats put up 84 and no Big Ten team had scored fewer than 63 against the Hoosiers before Wednesday.
That effort started with the zone defense, which Moren implemented against the Scarlet Knights. The shift in strategy helped limit their leading scorer, junior guard Tyler Scaife, to just 3-of-13 shooting. Rutgers only managed to shoot 18-of-50 from the field as a team.
Moren said it’s imperative that players on the bench, such as freshman forward Kym Royster and sophomore guard Jess Walter, learn the rotations of the defense in order to substitute players who play big minutes.
Moren used Royster as an example in the postgame press conference, saying though her performance may not show up on the stat sheet, her 13 minutes played a significant role in what the Hoosiers were looking for on defense.
“We have to be able to switch from man-to-man to zone,” Moren said. “We’ve shown that we can play man, now we’re showing that we can play zone. I think our kids are starting to become more comfortable with zone.”
Moren also said she stressed transition defense and boxing out in the post, something the Hoosiers have struggled with all season, as they were outrebounded 43-36 by Northwestern and have only outrebounded Michigan in Big Ten play.
With Rutgers centers 6-foot-4 senior Rachel Hollivay and 6-foot-3 senior Ariel Butts, boxing out would be no easy task.
“Going into the game we were talking about how much bigger they were than us and how much more athletic they were,” sophomore forward Amanda Cahill said. “We knew we had to play a solid game.”
IU managed 11 more rebounds than Rutgers, led by Cahill and sophomore guard Tyra Buss’ seven rebounds each. Four Hoosiers tallied at least six, while only two Rutgers players managed at least six rebounds.
Rutgers also scored just two fast break points, while the Hoosiers scored eight and turned 14 Rutgers turnovers into 16 points.
“Give the kids credit,” Moren said. “They stuck to the gameplan, and I think, more importantly, [Rutgers] only had two offensive rebounds in the first half, so that was crucial.”
Even after holding the Scarlet Knights to just 17 first-half points, the Hoosiers allowed the Knights to ignite a 14-4 run in the third quarter and were outscored 21-14 in the quarter.
But IU bounced back with another low-scoring quarter, limiting Rutgers to 10 points and scoring 19 of its own and pushing IU to its best record (5-4) through nine Big Ten games since the 2009-2010 season.
“You can’t get onto offense if you don’t play defense,” junior guard Karlee McBride said. “We take a lot of pride in that. It’s definitely a good feeling to know that we won with our defense.”
