After an ugly loss to Oregon, Indiana women’s basketball saw its margin for error become even thinner.
IU entered Monday’s game at Washington on a three-game losing streak for the first time in nearly three years, after blowing a 10-point lead in Eugene, Ore. on Friday. Teri Moren’s team couldn’t afford to let the slump extend any further.
Indiana found itself in a similar position on Monday: ahead by double digits over the Huskies in the second half, with a chance to pull away and put the game out of reach. But Washington clawed back into the game in the fourth quarter, and the Hoosiers were staring at another game starting to get away from them.
But this time, they refused to let that happen. Graduate student Sydney Parrish broke a tie with a huge 3-pointer with 1:25 remaining, and the Hoosiers forced a tough look for the Huskies at the buzzer to pull out a 73-70 victory in Seattle.
“I think we all just said, ‘We can’t do it again. We can’t have this lead and lose it,'” junior Yarden Garzon said after the game. “We wanted to be really focused in what we are doing and execute, not just go rogue and have sloppy turnovers. I feel like we just wanted each other to be focused and do our best to stay locked in into the game and not lose it (with) three minutes until the end of the game. So we all just tried to make each other lock in all the way to the end.”
Indiana (13-7, 5-4 Big Ten) leaned heavily on Garzon throughout Monday’s game.
The Israeli had endured a rough patch over IU’s last three games, shooting just 8 for 34 from the field and 3 for 18 from 3-point range. Moren, after the Oregon game, expressed concern over her leading scorer’s struggles, bluntly noting that the team relies on her for scoring and she hadn’t been delivering.
And in Seattle, Garzon did more than just break out of the slump — she turned in, perhaps, her finest game as a Hoosier. The forward set new career-highs with 35 points and eight made 3-pointers on 10 attempts. Washington (13-8, 4-5) was rarely able to stop her, particularly in the second half. Garzon knocked down her open shots, but she also hit some difficult looks with defenders in her face. She shot 13 for 18 from the field, and added four rebounds, two assists with two turnovers, and two steals.
Garzon said it felt amazing to end her slump in such a big way, and that she maintained her normal routine during that stretch.
“I felt like I didn’t change a thing,” Garzon said. “I tried to take my shots before the game like usual. I’m trying to be as consistent as I can. This night it fell in, and I hope it will continue to fall in.”
Garzon also became the 33rd player in program history to reach 1,000 career points during Monday’s game. Chloe Moore-McNeil reached the same milestone earlier in January during IU’s loss to USC. Moore-McNeil led Indiana with six assists against Washington.
Parrish also played a key role for IU in the win. She scored 16 points, with 13 coming in the second half. Along with the crucial 3-pointer in the fourth quarter, she scored seven big points late in the third quarter and led IU on a run going into the final period. The wing shot 6 for 10 from the field and 4 for 6 from 3-point range, and she also grabbed a team-high six rebounds.
Overall, Moren was pleased with her team’s response to the disappointing performance against Oregon. The Hoosiers remained on the west coast, with one practice at the Seattle Storm’s facilities and one at UW — and Moren said both practices went very well.
“We realize we let one slip away at Oregon, because we had the lead, we should have been able to keep the lead. And so we got to own that. And we did. But you got to squash it and you got to move on, because Washington is a very, very good basketball team,” Moren said. “Give our kids credit. I said, ‘We’ll see what we’re made of.’ And I thought our kids showed up in the right way. It was a hard-fought win. And so I’m really proud of them.”
Indiana returns home on Sunday to take on Nebraska.
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