Indiana women’s basketball’s up-and-down season could end up being defined by what happens on Friday afternoon.
The Hoosiers, a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, will take on No. 8 seed Utah at 1:30 p.m. ET in Columbia, S.C. on ESPN2. An IU victory would give head coach Teri Moren a 10th consecutive 20-win season in Bloomington, and it would be the program’s fifth straight season with an NCAA Tournament victory.
A loss wouldn’t render this season a failure, but snapping those streaks would mark a separator from IU’s more successful run over the previous four years that featured three Sweet 16 appearances and an Elite Eight.
But Indiana feels good heading into Friday’s contest.
“I feel like this year, we had a lot of ups and downs. We learned to know each other. And I feel like we come (into) tomorrow very confident,” junior Yarden Garzon said Thursday. “We have (a) great game plan, and I feel like our preparation was great. And we really want to go out there and play. I think that’s the main thing.
Utah’s season has been defined by adapting. Head coach Lynne Roberts left the program just four games into the season after becoming the head coach of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. Associate head coach Gavin Petersen took the reins on a permanent basis. But that sort of shift is tough to deal with in the middle of a season.
And the Utes were already going through some transition even before the coaching change. They spent the beginning of the season adjusting to life without star forward Alissa Pili, who graduated last year — a similar situation to what Indiana has dealt with all season in making up for the loss of Mackenzie Holmes.
There’s mutual respect between both programs for the way they compete and the success they’ve enjoyed in recent years.
“Teri and her coaching staff have done a phenomenal job over the last six, eight years. They’ve been really good. They’ve been hosting the first and second rounds at their place. We got to do that one year,” Petersen said Thursday. “Credit to them and their program on continuing to be in that upper part of the Big Ten. So hats off to them. We’re fired up just to be able to get that opportunity to play a team like this.”
The similarities between Indiana and Utah don’t stop with Pili and Holmes. Both the Hoosiers and Utes lean on strong 3-point shooting this year.
Utah shoots 37.1 percent on 3-pointers, good for 13th in the country; Indiana ranks 16th at 36.7 percent. The Hoosiers rely on those outside shots a little more than the Utes, though. 45.7 percent of IU’s shots come from beyond the 3-point line, which is the ninth-highest rate in the country; Utah owns a 38.8 3-point rate, which ranks 77th.
IU junior Shay Ciezki said Utah reminds her more of the Hoosiers than any opponent they’ve faced this season.
“I think the biggest similarity is honestly us. We said this before, prepping for them, we have to make sure we keep them off the 3-point line. They’re great 3-point shooters,” Ciezki said Thursday. “They have great players. (The key is) making sure that we win the rebound (battle), and honestly, just stay on them fast, and make sure we’re the aggressors this game.”
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