Heading into Sunday’s matchup, the Bellarmine Knights were on a six-game winning streak and looked to be on the hunt for an upset at Assembly Hall. Yet the Indiana Hoosiers had a completely different plan and came out red hot right out of the gate.
It was an all-around team performance by the Hoosiers as seven players scored in double digits for the first time in program history in the 95-61 win.
From the tip, the Hoosiers made six of eight attempts from the floor and was the start of a impressive offensive performance. The Knights made some tough buckets yet the Hoosier offense was breaking through the defense easily with their ball movement.
Indiana finished the game with 27 assists on 37 made shots, marking the highest so far this season. Junior guard Yarden Garzon led the team with six assists while graduate senior guard Chloe Moore-McNeil added five assists and is now the seventh player in program history to reach 400 career assists. Playmaking was big for Indiana as the ball movement was sharp and led to easy baskets. The Hoosiers have struggled all season long with high turnover games, yet against the Knights their movement was on point.
“Coach always emphasized sharing the sugar,” senior forward Karoline Striplin said. “I think when were not turning the ball over its easier to get the open looks especially when everybotys contributing.”
The bench in particular stood out for the Hoosiers as they brought in 45 points and was led by Striplin who picked up where she left off after a perfect game against Penn State last week. Striplin led with 18 points and 8 rebounds while shooting 7-for-10 from the field. Every other posession Striplin was posted up in the paint screaming “Feed me!” for the ball as she took over.
However all the talk was about junior guard Henna Sandvik who had a career game recording highs of 13 points and six rebounds in a breakout game. Sandvik has found her way on the court for heavy minutes since graduate senior guard Sydney Parrish went down with injury.
“When you look around this team and you’ve got people like Chloe (Moore-McNeil) and Lilly (Miester) and just people who waited their turn to make their impact,” Sandvik said. “You just have to keep working hard every single day and trust the process, your time will come.”
Sandvik along with Striplin and junior guard Lexus Bargesser have been ready to step up all season long and Sundays win was a prime example of it.
At the end of the first half the Hoosiers had a 24 point lead and only continued to build onto it.
The defense by Indiana led to 18 Knight turnovers and held them to making only five 3-pointers when Bellarmine averaged eight a game prior. Head coach Teri Morens defensive plan going into the game was executed the way she wanted her team to come out. Yet she wasnt fully satisfied with them. Heading into the game the number to limit the Knights to was 65, Indiana limited them to 61. Moren also wasnt pleased with the kill numbers in the first half. Kills for Moren mean three defensive stops in a row.
“You talk about all of the good things their doing however for kills we didnt have three in a row, we had two kills. For the first half thats not good enough,” Moren said.
In the second half the Hoosiers ran away with the game and excelled from long range. Both Garzon and Sandvik knocked down 3 treys as the team shot 38.5% from deep. Even freshman Valentina Kadlecova knocked down her first career 3-pointer.
There was a lot to point out on what Indiana did well and it was also on the rebounding end. Indiana pulled down 12 offensive boards and a total of 41 in the game. In the paint was where the Hoosiers thrived as they scored 46 points in the paint and 9 second chance points.
“This is a resilient group, theyve been disappointed in the losses. Theyve been disappointed we havent played well. Theyre really competitive. None of that has left our basketball team,” Moren said. “Its a daunting Big 10 schedule theres no question and were still probably going to have some peaks and valleys and that. But I still think were a really good basketball team.”
Indiana will play its last non-conference game on Sunday December 22 at noon against Oakland as they look to grab another win before the daunting conference play begins.
