Three hundred sixty-five days ago, then-No. 14 Indiana women’s basketball faced off against then-No. 3 Iowa, which had arguably the greatest college basketball player of all time in Caitlin Clark.
The Hoosiers were dominated, falling by 27 points. Indiana head coach Teri Moren said the game “wasn’t fun.”
Sunday — a year later — both teams look drastically different. First-year head coach Jan Jensen is at the helm of the Hawkeyes, while Clark and three other starters moved on after their run to the national championship game in 2023-24. Indiana’s all-time leading scorer, Mackenzie Holmes, exhausted her eligibility alongside former sharpshooting guard Sara Scalia.
Still, the intense battles from the past two seasons remained. At morning shootaround, Indiana head coach Teri Moren relayed graduate student guard Sydney Parrish’s message that she wasn’t going to leave Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday without a win.
The Hoosiers didn’t just win, they led wire-to-wire en route to a 74-67 victory over the Hawkeyes in Iowa City, Iowa. The victory marks Indiana’s first at a fan-filled Carver-Hawkeye Arena since Feb. 20, 1994.
“Once again, a great crowd for Iowa,” Moren said postgame. “They make this place such a difficult place to win. We’ve been on the other end of this several times, so it feels really good today to be on the other side of it and get out of here with a win. Really proud of our guys and how hard they played.”
Ahead of the Hoosiers’ season, Moren explained it was going to take time to learn how to play without Holmes. Some fans panicked after a 1-2 start with losses to Harvard University and Butler University alongside a later loss to the University of North Carolina.
Since then, Indiana had won seven of its last eight games, with its lone loss coming to No. 1 UCLA.
Despite coming off a victory over Northwestern at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Illinois, on Jan. 8, Indiana won by just 4 points over a team which has yet to defeat a Big Ten opponent. Entering Sunday, the Hoosiers’ three previous conference victories came against schools with a combined 1-15 Big Ten record.
Looking to avenge an embarrassing year-old loss and notch its third ranked victory of the season, Indiana seized the opportunity.
“I just remembered last year here, and I didn’t want it to happen again,” Yarden Garzon said.
Garzon, the junior guard who is seemingly even-keeled and doesn’t tend to express much emotion, did so ever so slightly after she drained her first of five 3-pointers in the contest.
“So, I just gave them a look to let them know that we are here,” Garzon said, “and we are here to win the game.”
The Ra’anana, Israel, native scored a game-high 21 points as she went 7 of 8 from the field and 5 for 5 from beyond the arc. She also added five rebounds and four assists.
Graduate student guard Chloe Moore-McNeil and Parrish — the unquestioned leaders — were just behind Garzon with their 18 and 15 points, respectively. The duo combined for eight rebounds and five assists.
After the Hawkeyes cut the Hoosiers’ lead to only 4 points with just under two minutes remaining, senior forward Karoline Striplin made a layup to give the Cream and Crimson a 6-point lead.
Then, when Iowa began to foul, Moore-McNeil drained all four of her free throws to essentially seal the victory.
Although the contest may not have been nationally televised like it was a season ago with Clark and Holmes headlining the two squads, Moren and her squad didn’t view the game any lesser.
“We didn't approach it any different,” Moren said. “We really didn't. It was, we're going to go into a place where the crowd is going to be into it, they're going to be terrific, and our job is to go in there and try to keep them as quiet as we could.”
The Hoosiers, at the end of the game, kept the Hawkeyes and their fans quiet, returning to Bloomington after a successful 2-0 road trip.
Now, Indiana turns its attention to a 7 p.m. matchup Thursday against Illinois inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. The Fighting Illini announced Jan. 8 they will be without fifth-year senior guard Makira Cook for the rest of the season due to a “ongoing health condition.” Sophomore guard Gretchen Dolan is also out of the season because of a knee injury.
Indiana and Illinois split the season series in 2023-24 as the home team won each matchup. After Thursday, a meeting with No. 4 USC looms Jan. 19.
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
