Nov. 23 is Yarden Garzon’s birthday. Last year, she set a then-career high in points, and Saturday, against Columbia, she had the second double-double of her career.
Garzon’s 18 points and 10 rebounds were essential to Indiana’s 72-62 win against Columbia. There was one point during the third quarter when she hit a 3, and then on the very next play, she blocked a Columbia player’s shot. Everyone, including Garzon, loves how she plays on her day.
“For her to come out and have a double-double for us was huge,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said.
However, it was not only Garzon who balled out for the Hoosiers. Lilly Meister tied her career high in points with 20. Meister’s confidence clearly has grown over the last few weeks because there were multiple times she made clutch plays in the paint.
Moren said the part of Meister’s game that she loves is her ability to track down second-chance opportunities. She said this improvement in her game, along with many other aspects, is a testament to her hard work over the past two seasons being behind Mackenzie Holmes.
“She’s waited her turn, but she’s continued to work and stay focused on her process of becoming the player she’s becoming,” Moren said.
Meister and her teammates’ ability to offensively rebound the ball in the second half was another reason the Hoosiers were able to stay on the winners’ side of the bracket in the Battle 4 Atlantis. Indiana led five to zero in offensive rebounds and eight to nothing in second-chance points in the second 20 minutes, so it is clear the Hoosiers ground this one out.
Despite IU winning the game by 10 points, the Lions kept this game close. It was tied 60-60 with 2:39 on the clock in the fourth, so it took a 12-2 run by the Hoosiers to put them away. This back-and-forth affair is another example of how competitive the Ivy League teams have been with Indiana this season — one of IU’s two losses was to Harvard.
“They make you work for every possession, so very impressed with the Ivy League,” Moren said.
Indiana will now have to play a step up in competition with their second major conference and ranked opponent of the season, the 18th-ranked Baylor Bears, next up Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on the FloSports app.
