One of the central storylines of Indiana women’s basketball’s season was its performance in big games.
The Hoosiers suffered lopsided defeats in two of their biggest games of the regular season, road dates at Stanford and at Iowa. They performed better in some other big games later in the season, but those two performances lingered over Indiana’s season like an ominous cloud.
Whether fair or unfair, and whether true or false, it created a perception that the Hoosiers didn’t show up in their biggest games.
But Indiana spent its entire NCAA Tournament run conquering narratives. Its second-round win over Oklahoma avenged last season’s heartbreaking loss to Miami that stuck with the team all year. And although the fourth-seeded Hoosiers fell short in the Sweet 16 to undefeated South Carolina, they put to rest any remaining doubters of their big-game mettle.
It appeared, for a while, that supporters of that narrative would get the last laugh on Friday. Indiana trailed the No. 1 overall seed by 17 points at halftime, and USC led by 22 early in the third quarter. But the Hoosiers flipped the game around took control from there, in a remarkable turnaround that saw them come within two points of the Gamecocks in the final minute of the contest in Albany, N.Y.
South Carolina needed a championship-caliber response to stave off the upset attempt and keep Indiana from achieving its biggest win in program history. The Gamecocks put the game away at the end and won, 79-75, to advance to the Elite Eight.
But IU, unquestionably, showed up.
“We’re a tough team, and we knew we were going to have to fight until the end. We could have given up after halftime, and it could have been a really ugly game, but we’re fighters, and I think we showed that tonight,” senior guard Sydney Parrish said after the game. “I’m glad we did because I think it put us on the map, and I think people will realize what Indiana basketball is, and we weren’t going to give up.”
This was a rocky game for Indiana for so long. All-American Mackenzie Holmes couldn’t impact the game as much as she typically does, in a difficult matchup against South Carolina All-American Kamilla Cardoso. The Hoosiers got sloppy in the first half with nine turnovers, and when the Gamecocks weren’t locking them down and forcing tough shots, they missed a number of open looks.
But it didn’t faze IU. The team never quit. The Hoosiers steadily chipped away at USC’s lead, and their confidence grew with every point they shaved off the deficit.
IU didn’t need any magic to make its comeback. It was simply the byproduct of the hard work and strong mentality that head coach Teri Moren has built her program around. Her Indiana teams may not always be the best on the court, but they never give up.
This result ended Holmes’ decorated IU career that saw her ascend to the top of the program’s all-time scoring list and become its all-time winningest player.
And though the graduate student was understandably broken up after the game about her career ending, but she couldn’t help but express pride in the way she and her teammates closed it out.
“I think that we knew we were capable of coming back,” Holmes said. “We battled our butts off tonight, the entire third and fourth quarter, whether shots were falling or not. We kept getting back on defense, keep getting stops, kept making plays on the other end. I’m just super, super proud that — our backs were against the wall, and we did not go down without a fight. And that’s all we can really ask for.”
The Miami loss to end last year provided Indiana with a sour taste to carry into last offseason and use it as motivation this season. The Hoosiers were determined to never feel that way again.
The Oklahoma win put that to rest, for good, and brought IU both joy and relief.
Indiana was clearly disappointed after Friday’s loss, as any team would be after a season-ending defeat. But while IU came out of last season with a chip on its shoulder, it can come out of this year with a building block.
The way the Hoosiers battled and pushed the best team in the country to the brink shows how close they still are to the top programs in the sport. It can provide motivation in a different way than last year — Indiana can look at how close it was to a historic result, and enter this offseason with confidence and motivation to finish the job next time.
Indiana will look different next year. Holmes and Sara Scalia, two of this team’s main catalysts, will be gone. The Hoosiers have three returning starters in Parrish, Chloe Moore-McNeil, and Yarden Garzon. They also have promising underclassmen set to return in Lilly Meister, Lexus Bargesser, Jules LaMendola, and Lenée Beaumont, who all showed promise this year. And IU has two freshmen signed in the class, in forwards Faith Wiseman and Sydney Fenn. But the team may need to hit the transfer portal harder this offseason than it did last year to maintain its contender status.
Teri Moren has a positive outlook for the future of Indiana women’s basketball. It’s in her nature.
She, like her players, felt the sting of defeat after this season ended. But she can point to the way her team fought back from a huge deficit against mighty South Carolina on the big stage and use that experience as a foundation for Indiana’s next era.
“I’m always optimistic. That’s just how I’ve been raised,” Moren said. Those guys that are coming back, this is a great experience for them. It needs to sting. It needs to hurt a little bit. I want our kids, as I said to them, to walk out with their heads held high. But I want it to bother Beau. I want it to bother Jules. I want it to bother Chloe, I want it to bother Lilly, all those kids, Lexi. I want it to bother them, and I know it does.”
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