No. 6 Indiana women’s basketball will play its second top-10 matchup in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall of the season on Thursday when it welcomes No. 9 Maryland to Bloomington for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off. The Hoosiers, then ranked No. 5, defeated then-No. 6 University of North Carolina 87-63 in the Hall on Dec. 1.
Unlike the Big Ten/ACC Challenge victory over the Tar Heels, however, the Hoosiers will have star graduate guard Grace Berger in the lineup against the Terrapins. The three-time All-Big Ten First Team player returned last game in Indiana’s 72-50 victory over Northwestern after missing eight games with a right knee injury.
In her first game back, Berger recorded 16 points on 5-12 shooting, five assists, a rebound, two steals and no turnovers and said she physically “felt pretty much like my old self.”
[Related: Grace Berger returns as No. 6 Indiana women’s basketball defeats Northwestern]
Berger returning to an All-Conference level will be necessary for the Hoosiers to pull off the ranked win against an opponent they have historically struggled against. Prior to last season, the cream and crimson were 0-11 against the Terrapins before a regular season overtime victory in Bloomington last January and the Hoosiers knocking the Terps out of the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis last March.
However, while Indiana returned its top two scorers from last season and supplemented the starting lineup with a mix of newcomers and returners, Maryland lost five of its top six scorers and completely overhauled its rotation. The only major returning contributor from last season is senior guard Diamond Miller, who leads her team in points, rebounds, blocks and steals as well as being tied for second in assists this season.
Although Maryland is sporting a drastically different look from last year, Indiana head coach Teri Moren said she is not overlooking the team that has historically dominated and is led by 21st year head coach Brenda Freese.
“It's a different team than Brenda's had in the past, but it's a very, very balanced team, they're still athletic as they’ve always been,” Moren said on Wednesday. “Despite their roster maybe might look a little bit different, I don't know that the tradition piece of it — the moxie, the confidence — ever leaves when you've we've built what Brenda's build at Maryland.”
Among the newcomers is senior guard Abby Meyers, a Princeton University transfer. Meyers is one of three Terrapins averaging double-digit points per game, in addition to ranking second on the team in rebounds and tied for second in assists. A 43% shooter from deep, Meyers will also stretch Indiana’s defense as she takes more 3-pointers than any of her teammates — 5.25 attempts per game.
While Meyers and the Terps have been shooting exceptionally well from range this season — their 37.5% mark ranks second in the conference — the Hoosiers have struggled from 3-point range lately. In their last three games combined, 50 shots from deep have resulted in just 10 makes, which has led to a loss at Michigan State and barely surviving an overtime game at home against Nebraska across that stretch.
[Related: No. 4 Indiana women’s basketball defeats Nebraska in overtime on New Year’s Day]
Moren said that she fully trusts her players to continue shooting at volume to break out of the slump and said it’s a result of conference opponents playing tougher than some of the non-conference teams Indiana faced.
“It has less to do with us not being able to hit shots and more to do with the defense that we're seeing every night from the Big Ten,” Moren said. “I am hopeful, but I'm also confident that we’ll get back on track here. We’re just too good of shooters not to.”
Indiana will have to find that shooting stroke quickly in order to pull off a win on Thursday. Maryland has had a relatively up and down early season to reach 13-3. It suffered a 25-point loss to defending champion and No. 1-ranked University of South Carolina but fell in surprising losses to DePaul University in an early-season tournament and Nebraska by 23 points at home in College Park, Maryland.
In addition to the losses, Maryland also has impressive wins. It beat No. 18 Baylor University and No. 7 University of Notre Dame on the road — the latter thanks to a Miller buzzer-beater — and notched a win over the dynastic No. 4 University of Connecticut. It also defeated the Michigan State team that handed Indiana its only loss this season.
While the Terps are not having quite as dominant a season as they’ve enjoyed in the past, they’re still a top-10 team and Teri Moren recognizes the history of the program her Hoosiers will be up against when the teams square off Thursday.
“I just think that they play with a different kind of chip,” Moren said. “So take records out of it. This is still Maryland, and this is the team that when I got into the league was the bar for everybody.”
