Then there’s IU junior center Jenn Anderson, who has played six weeks with a broken middle finger on her left hand and two weeks with a sore right shoulder.
She wears a headband.
“She’s one tough cookie,” sophomore guard Tyra Buss said. “She does all the little things for us, and she’s not afraid to do the dirty work. She battles through it.”
Anderson does all of this while being the rock in IU’s post, as the Hoosiers have gone 8-2 since Anderson fractured her finger in the Purdue loss.
When asked how her finger is doing, she’ll chuckle, examine the splint and bandages that attach her middle and ring fingers and say it’s still crooked, “but it’s getting there.”
Anderson started the season with lower back pain and illness that limited her time on the court. Junior forward Lyndsey Leikem started the team’s first six games.
But for the team, she’s there. She’s always been there.
The center started 28 of the 30 games she played last season. She’s appeared in every game this season, and started the last 19 — 10 of which she started with a fractured finger. No excuses, she said with a smile and a nod toward her teammates.
And it’s shown. Not on the stat sheet, but in other ways.
“We’ve been playing more zone than we ever have in my coaching career, and she’s really been the anchor right there in the middle of it all,” Moren said. “She’s played really well. Jenn’s a really high-IQ kid.”
Moren has mentioned Anderson several times throughout the season when talking about the Hoosiers’ lack of depth. Leikem and Cahill aren't natural fits at center, and freshmen Kym Royster and Danielle Williams haven’t been prepared to consistently fill Anderson’s role.
There aren’t any players with her size and basketball intelligence, and Moren recognized that when she said the team really leans on the tattered center.
Anderson isn’t the type of player that will get a double-double every game or put up gaudy scoring figures like Buss and sophomore forward Amanda Cahill. Anderson averages 7.5 points per game and 4.9 rebounds per game.
She earns her minutes through defense, which Moren and the Hoosiers recognize.
At 6-foot-3, Anderson isn’t the tallest in the Big Ten — 20 players in the conference are taller than her — and she doesn’t average the most rebounds per game. Only Cahill represents IU in the top-20 in conference with 8.3.
But she is physical, and she uses it to her advantage.
“That’s one of the advantages for me personally on defense, being able to be physical and push her out,” Moren said.
While she tries to open up her right side for teammates to get the ball to her good hand, Anderson said she has noticed teams often close off her right side and force her to take shots with her left hand — the hand with a splint and two fingers taped together.
Against Wisconsin on Sunday, she attempted a wide-open layup with her left hand but bricked the ball against the back of the rim.
“It’s kind of hard because I have to grip the ball differently, so I’ve been trying to use my right hand more,” Anderson said. “My teammates are good about getting it to my right side because they know I have trouble dribbling with my left hand.”
Late in the third quarter of the same game though, when IU was down two and Wisconsin was threatening the Hoosiers’ 11-0 home record in Assembly Hall, Anderson took a charge on defense.
The turnover would lead to the tying points, which eventually led to the lead, a lead IU would never give back.
“She’s kind of unique,” Moren said. “There aren’t a lot of fives that’ll sacrifice like that. I always tell the kids: that’s one the most selfless things you can do as a teammate. She makes them believable too. That’s a big body going down there.”
So when discussing how IU has been projected a seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2002, Anderson does not go unmentioned by her teammates.
“We’re proud of her,” Buss said. “She’s going to keep continuing to do whatever she needs to do to help the team win because that’s what Jenn does.”
