A blowout win Thursday night left IU women’s basketball coach Teri Moren unhappy with the team’s ability to put together a complete game.
On Sunday, IU raced out to a fast start en route to an 87-58 win against Valparaiso, but a defensive collapse in the fourth quarter still left Moren concerned.
“Well, I was really happy with three quarters, not so happy with the fourth,” Moren said. “They outscored us 26-15 there, so we’ll go back, and I’m sure that’ll be some really good film for our players, especially those young kids that were out on the floor. I thought defensively we made some strides in the right direction this afternoon, but I don’t think we did so much in the fourth.”
After Moren expressed her displeasure, particularly with the defensive effort from her bench in a 51-point win against Northern Kentucky on Thursday, IU came out with focus in the first half against Valparaiso.
The Hoosiers forced 13 turnovers and came up with 17 points off the Crusaders’ miscues throughout the first two quarters. The Hoosiers were sharp on the offensive end in the first half as well, only turning the ball over three times.
Led by 15 first-half points from senior guard Alexis Gassion, the Hoosiers took a 42-22 lead into the break. Gassion finished the day with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field.
“I was going to keep pulling until I missed, but I didn’t,” Gassion said of her torrid first half. “In that moment, my teammates were looking for me, the crowd was into it, and I felt like it was going to be good.”
IU was able to stifle Valparaiso’s leading scorer, Dani Franklin, for much of the game and kept the junior forward to just eight points in the first three quarters. The sloppy fourth allowed Franklin to wind up with 18 points in the game, but she shot just five-of-16 from the field.
Franklin wasn’t the only Crusader who had a big fourth quarter, though the outcome of the game was virtually decided before the quarter began. IU outscored Valporaiso 30-10 in the third and had a 72-32 lead at the start of the final period. Moren turned to her bench to start the fourth, and things did not go smoothly from there.
The Hoosiers committed nine turnovers and 10 fouls in the fourth quarter to allow the 26-point outburst from Valparaiso in that time. After a 12-2 Valparaiso run to kick off the fourth, Moren was forced to go back to her bench to stop the bleeding.
“You want to get those guys experience, and the only way you do that is by playing them,” Moren said. “But you also get rewarded for playing well and performing well and staying sound defensively.”
Junior guard Tyra Buss, junior forward Amanda Cahill and Gassion were part of the brigade called in to put out the fourth quarter fire. Buss finished the game with 12 points and six assists, and Cahill turned in a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
The Hoosiers have a week off for finals now, and Moren said the break will be useful to hammer out the things needed to ensure her team can finish games.
“Great teams want to be coached, and average teams don’t like to be told the truth,” Moren said. “I consider ourselves a great team. They accepted our challenge of becoming a better defensive team. I will keep coaching them up until they tell me differently, until they tell me they want to be average, and I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”
