No. 16-ranked Indiana women’s basketball defeated Illinois 77-71 in front of an 11,600-person crowd at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Sunday afternoon.
The win is Indiana’s 10th in a row, which makes it the longest active streak in the Big Ten streak.
Indiana graduate student forward Mackenzie Holmes put on a clinic against the Fighting Illini with 30 points on 10-for-14 from the field, 10-for-12 from the free-throw line and seven rebounds. It is the fifth 30-point game of her career.
Indiana has had a player score 30 or more points in three straight games. Yarden Garzon had 30 against Evansville, Scalia had 32 against Bowling Green and now Holmes.
"Every game I trust that my teammates are going to find me when I'm open,” Holmes said.
Indiana senior guard Chloe Moore-McNeil had a quality game as well with a season-high 19 points on 7-for-11 from the field and 2-for-3 from 3-point range.
Aside from her season high in the scoring category, she had three assists and two rebounds.
"When we can have Chloe be as aggressive as she was today,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said, “that will only help our basketball team."
Despite positive plays from Moore-McNeil and Holmes, the offense did struggle at points throughout the game.
Scalia finished 0-for-6 from the field with two points and 0-for-3 from 3-point range.
“She's (Scalia) too good of a shooter to not and we're going to have to figure out other ways that we can get her loose,” Moren said. “Overall, you know we're happy that we got out of here with a win today to sort of restart the Big Ten season.”
The first quarter started off slow with a battle between Holmes and Illinois senior forward Kendall Bostic. Both started perfectly from the field, going 3-for-3 to keep the game tied at six a piece. Bostic would finish the game with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
However, Moore-McNeil scored a layup to become the first Indiana player aside from Holmes to score and give an 8-6 lead. Indiana’s offense would create more opportunities to wrap up the first quarter 17-10.
The Hoosiers would extend their lead to as much as 11 in the second quarter, but the Fighting Illini embodied the “Fighting” part as Illinois’ pair of senior guards Makira Cook and Genesis Bryant led the charge to score 20 points and cut the lead down to six at the end of the half, 37-31.
Cook had 24 points and five assists while Bryant had 12 points, five assists and four rebounds.
Holmes led the Hoosiers entering halftime with 15 points, 6-for-8 from the field and four rebounds while Bostic led the Illini with 14 points, 7-for-13 from the field and seven rebounds.
The third quarter rolls around and despite Indiana’s best efforts, Illinois would not go away. Each team would gain momentum in small runs before Illinois cut the lead to two entering the fourth.
Indiana and Illinois had a back-and-forth fourth quarter. For every bucket Indiana scored, Illinois retaliated. With the Hoosiers up by one, Moore-McNeil found Garzon outside the arc to sink in a 3-pointer to extend the lead to 71-67. Illinois secured another bucket, but fouled Indiana to ice the game.
Indiana is now 11-1 on the season with a 2-0 conference record. The next game will be against Michigan at 7 p.m. Jan. 4 at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
