The IU women’s basketball head coach was back on the radio call for “Inside IU women’s basketball with Teri Moren.”
With 99 wins at IU under her belt, Moren looked back on Sunday’s win at Nebraska and foreshadowed the upcoming matchup with Minnesota on Wednesday.
Here are three takeaways from the radio show.
1. Wise continues to lead
While junior forward Brenna Wise has been solid on the court for IU — averaging nearly 13 points per game along with 6.7 rebounds and a 92.6 percent free throw percentage — her leadership off the court has been evident since last season.
Although she did not play last year due to transfer rules, Wise was always an active voice on the bench and has carried that mentality into this season.
“If you’re juiceless, you’re useless,” Wise said. “We try and keep the energy as high as we possibly can, and it’s contagious in our atmosphere. So, if one has it, it just continues to the other and it becomes a contagious mindset.”
Wise stressed the importance of creating energy in tough Big Ten road environments, which the team was able to do in its 82-78 win in front of 3,893 attendees at Nebraska.
“It’s you against everybody else,” Wise said. “Everybody wants to protect their home court, we included. Protecting Assembly Hall is very important to us. So, on the road it’s almost like you start off and you’re down 14-0.”
2. The bench has shown its value
Against the Cornhuskers, the Hoosier bench provided 16 points — the highest total since scoring 19 on Jan. 6 in a win against then-No. 15 Michigan State.
All of Sunday’s bench points came from freshmen guard Grace Berger and forward Aleksa Gulbe. While inconsistent in stretches this season, both have shown signs of why Moren brought them in, and they hit big shots in Sunday’s win.
“It was great to see Grace Berger be as aggressive as she was yesterday,” Moren said. “Aleksa was also just as aggressive.”
Sophomore guard Keyanna Warthen did not score for IU on Sunday and has averaged less than two points per game this season, but in the last handful of games she has created energy late in quarters.
“She’s waited patiently over there on the sideline,” Moren said. “She’s really taken advantage of the minutes we’ve given her. So it’s nice to see her come along.”
3. Aggressiveness is key despite the defense
After IU’s offense came to life in the middle quarters of Sunday’s game, Nebraska decided to drop back into a 1-3-1 zone, creating some issues for the IU offense.
“It’s an unusual kind of zone, you don’t see a 1-3-1 very often,” Moren said. “We looked at a few actions out of our zone and then we just said, ‘we’re going to go away from that and just be aggressive.'”
Moren said the team looked to spread the floor in order to take advantage of gaps left in the defense, but the team was unable to hit open outside shots.
“Once we got them in a timeout, we kept talking just about ‘Hey, you know it’s great that we’re getting these open looks, but they’re not falling. So, let’s try to be more aggressive, try to really draw two,’” Moren said. “That made a difference, but that’s one of the things about Nebraska. We knew we were gonna see it, we just didn’t know when.”
Tipoff against Minnesota will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall before the team hits the road again Monday to face No. 23 Michigan State.
