'We beat ourselves': Turnovers doom Indiana women's basketball in loss to No. 11 Maryland

Things finally reached a boiling point Sunday afternoon at Assembly Hall with 5:50 to play in the third quarter and the Hoosiers down 15 to the No. 11 Maryland Terrapins.

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IU coach Teri Moren had seen enough and was given her first technical foul of the season. At that point, the Terrapins were slowly starting to create more and more separation between themselves and the Hoosiers, and Moren needed to speak up. She said postgame that the technical wasn’t necessarily to stir up momentum again, but rather because she wants to fight for her team.

But the frustration from missed shots and costly mistakes was evident. Indiana shot just 38 percent from the field and turned the ball over 20 times in a 76-56 loss to the Terrapins.

“We beat ourselves,” Moren said. “You can’t turn it over, I thought we had some good looks at the bucket – one of the things we told our kids to do was attack and be aggressive, I thought they did that. But, shots weren’t falling at moments or we were attacking and coming up empty, we couldn’t get ourselves to the free throw line, it felt like.”

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It looked like Indiana was going to make it a game Sunday afternoon. The Hoosiers were even with the Terrapins, 20-20, after one quarter, but that momentum faded quickly. A 20-5 second quarter ballooned Maryland’s lead out to 15 at halftime. It was a second quarter in which the Hoosiers didn’t score for the final seven minutes, made just two shots and committed six turnovers.

Turnovers have started to become a bit of a problem for the Hoosiers. Coming into Sunday’s game, Indiana was committing 15.9 turnovers per game. IU guard Jaelynn Penn called them a “game changer” because it created fast break points for the Terrapins, a category in which Maryland controlled 25-18.

“It’s live ball turnovers,” IU guard Bendu Yeaney said. “It’s not like they are taking the ball out of bounds, so we can get our defense set. If we’re down on the court and they get a steal, that’s a wide-open layup… It was easy layups for them.”

Eleven of the 20 turnovers from Indiana came from guards Penn and IU point guard Ali Patberg. In the past three games, Patberg has committed as many turnovers, 13, as she has scored points. For the Hoosiers to be successful, that is something that needs to change.

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When Indiana has been successful this season, it is because Patberg has been leading the charge. She came into Sunday’s game as Indiana’s leading scorer at 16.3 points per game.

“The last three games she’s really struggled from the outside and being any kind of a scorer for us,” Moren said. “What we don’t do is give up on her. We have to get her going. Her regular routine has sort of stayed the same as far as being in the gym and getting her own individual workouts, her shots up, she’s been watching film. None of that has changed. I have to believe that some of it is mental inside of her head and we have to figure out how we can go back and show her clips of things when she was really good.”

After a stretch of four straight games in the state of Indiana, and three of those four at home, the Hoosiers now possibly have their toughest stretch of schedule. They will play four of the next five on the road, and it begins with a trip to No. 14 Rutgers on Thursday.

While Sunday’s game wasn’t what Indiana is looking for, there are still things to learn.

“We definitely learn from this one,” Yeaney said. “We can’t be lazy with the ball. That’s our main goal, we can’t have 20 turnovers in a game. That’s how you lose basketball games. You have to have less than 15 to win a basketball game in the Big Ten. That’s our take from this game.”