After news broke Sunday that starting senior guard Jaelynn Penn will opt out of the rest of the 2020-21 season, No. 17 IU women’s basketball’s 85-72 victory against Iowa on Sunday afternoon gave reassurance that the team’s unselfish play will persist even without Penn on the court.
Senior guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary took Penn’s spot in the lineup after previously filling in for her while Penn dealt with an ankle injury.
“That’s what I am most proud of,” head coach Teri Moren said. “It took all of us today, and that is what we wanted our response to be. I don’t know that it fell just on one person just because Nikki was in the lineup.”
The Hoosier’s team scoring efforts caused the Hawkeyes’ demise since they had fewer players capable of racking up points. IU had a more even spread with four out of five starters scoring at least 15 points or more, while Iowa only had two players achieve the same.
Sophomore forward Mackenzie Holmes led IU with 25 points, followed by senior guard Ali Patberg with 23 points. Cardaño-Hillary accumulated 17 points and junior guard Grace Berger had 15 points.
A frequent conversation between Moren and Patberg this season has been to take care of the ball herself by taking selfish shots, but Patberg said she knows she can count on her teammates to perform offensively alongside her.
“We have so many capable players on our team offensively, so I don’t ever really feel the pressure,” Patberg said. “We put in the work, so we are prepared.”
Compared to the Hoosiers pool of offensive talent, the Hawkeyes could only depend on freshman guard Caitlin Clark and junior forward Monika Czinano to keep pace with the Hoosiers’ scoring. Clark led the Hawkeyes with 30 points while Czinano accounted for 16 points.
The next highest scorer for Iowa was senior guard McKenna Warnock with only 10 points.
While Clark built up an offensive resume on her own, a one-woman effort was not enough to stop IU’s generosity with the ball. The Hoosiers accounted for 16 assists while the Hawkeyes had 12.
Moren said that once Cardaño-Hillary was given the responsibility of defending Clark, it was challenging for Clark to completely dominate since Cardaño-Hillary stayed underneath her on defense.
“She is a great player,” Patberg said about Clark. “She is going to hit great shots. We just had to hold her and hold the rest of the team, and that’s what we did.”
Despite a lack of Penn on the court, the Hoosiers were able to get the job done together on the offensive side of the ball.
“The conversation was put your ears back and keep attacking,” Moren said. “Keep going downhill… Just to keep getting to the paint, and that is what they kept doing.”
