Coming off its first loss of the season — an 83-78 defeat by Michigan State on Thursday — Indiana women’s basketball knew it needed to bounce back and start the new year off right.
“It's not what happens to us, it's how we respond to what happens to us,” head coach Teri Moren said.
However, against Nebraska on Sunday in Bloomington, it looked like Indiana was headed toward a similar fate to what it suffered in East Lansing. Thanks to making four of its five first quarter 3-pointers, Nebraska was able to lead by as many as seven points in the first frame and did not allow Indiana to lead at all in the first quarter.
The Hoosiers responded by fighting back and tying the game at 25 apiece midway through the second quarter. Cornhusker junior guard Jaz Shelley drove to the hoop for a layup and was met by Hoosier senior forward Mackenzie Holmes, who not so much blocked the shot, but instead snatched the ball out of Shelley’s hands.
Holmes quickly dumped the ball off to junior guard Chloe Moore-McNeil, who began sprinting down the floor and found senior guard Sara Scalia standing just behind the 3-point arc. As the Nebraska defender closed out to defend against a shot from Indiana’s highest-volume shooter from deep, Scalia pump-faked and drove directly at Nebraska sophomore center Alexis Markowski.
Just before Markowski could close the distance and alter the shot, Scalia threw a floater into the air, off the glass and in, giving the Hoosiers their first lead of the game, 27-25.
The play brought the crowd of 7,152 to their feet, who continued to make an impact throughout the game.
“Great crowd today on New Year's Day,” Moren said. “We needed every single one of those rear-ends that were in the seats — we needed every one of them. And we heard Hoosier nation in a big kind of way and so we're grateful.”
Indiana was unable to stay in front, however, and the two teams traded the lead 17 times over the course of the game, though from the second quarter on, neither team led by more than 5 points until overtime.
With just under two minutes left in regulation, junior guard Sydney Parrish hit a layup to tie the game at 62, the fourth tie in the fourth quarter alone. While both teams had chances to hit a go-ahead bucket and take the win, neither team could get a shot to fall across the final possessions and the teams went to overtime — the first of the season for the Hoosiers.
After going back and forth for 40 minutes of regulation, the five-minute overtime period looked completely different. The Hoosiers took control quick, grabbing the lead a minute in thanks to a Parrish 3-pointer over a closing defender.
The basket turned out to be the game-winner as the Hoosiers clamped down defensively, forcing three turnovers and not allowing the Huskers to hit any of their six shot attempts. With a 12-0 advantage in the extra five minutes, the Hoosiers claimed the 74-62 overtime win to start 2023.
“We're built for moments like those, we always have been,” Holmes, who led the team with 22 points and 10 rebounds, said. “We take a lot of pride in being the better conditioned team when the game gets going down the stretch in the fourth quarter and even an overtime situation. We take a lot of pride in our ability to shift into that extra gear, and I thought we did a really good job with that tonight.”
With the bounce-back win, Indiana now sits at 13-1 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten, with only conference games left to play. The team will have a week off before their next contest, a road matchup against Northwestern at 3 p.m. on Jan. 8 in Evanston, Illinois.
