After Indiana women’s basketball’s 21-point victory over Rutgers on Thursday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, the Hoosiers seemed to be finding their form to make a run toward the postseason.
Indiana was on a three-game win streak — with wins over Washington, Nebraska and Rutgers — which came on the back of a three-game losing streak.
But even after its dominant win over the Scarlet Knights, Indiana head coach Teri Moren knew her team needed to learn from their mistakes that occurred over its three straight losses at the end of January.
Moren pointed out Indiana’s 7-point loss at Oregon on Jan. 24, when it led for nearly 34 minutes of the contest but faltered in the fourth quarter due to seven turnovers.
She held hope those hard lessons would help Indiana when it went on a two-game road stretch at Minnesota and Michigan on Wednesday.
And while it seemed the Hoosiers had improved when they took the floor in the first quarter against Minnesota, Sunday’s matchup showed Indiana did not do as Moren had wanted.
Indiana got out to an early lead in the first quarter after an 11-2 run to give it a 6-point lead headed into the second quarter. It held Minnesota to 13 points, had just one turnover and shot 43.3% from the field.
But after the opening minutes, momentum started to shift to the Golden Gophers, who began to dominate in the second quarter and didn’t let up.
Indiana’s defense showed signs of life in the fourth quarter by not allowing Minnesota to score a field goal for just over five and a half minutes. However, it was too late for Indiana to make a comeback, and it fell to the Golden Gophers 56-66.
So, while Moren wanted the losses to turn into lessons, the Hoosiers’ collapse on the road proved they still have more to learn, even as a team comprised primarily of veterans.
“You have to be super special and do special things on the road that sometimes show up on the stat sheet and sometimes don’t, but you can’t do into an environment like this where they’re coming off of a losing their last three games,” Moren said. “I mean they’re desperate, they want to win in, and so not that my team didn’t want to win, but you have to you have to be extra special when you come on the road in tracking those down.”
And although there are just six games remaining on Indiana’s schedule, it needs to learn how to create its own energy on the road if it wants to make a case for a postseason berth.
But the Hoosiers will need to rely on one of their strengths: experience. Their starting lineup consisting of all upperclassmen will need to pull from their prior experiences on the road in conference games.
“You just can’t show up on the nights that we play in the hall with all of our fans there,” Moren said. “It has to show up on every stinking night especially when you’re on the road and you don’t have the energy.”
Three of the Hoosiers' last five games take place on the road, starting with Michigan on Wednesday at the Crisler Center. They will then have to take on No. 22 Michigan State on Feb. 23 and Purdue on March 2 on the road.
“We got to bottle up all that energy that we have when we’re at home and we got to bring it with us,” Moren said. “And I don’t know how to do that, but here’s what I do know: Good teams win at home, great teams win on the road. And we got to figure out how we can flip the script here down the stretch and try to steal some of these on the road.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
