Whether Caitlin Clark was hitting daggers or Indiana was blowing out Iowa in Assembly Hall, the Indiana-Iowa rivalry over the past couple of years has always delivered, and it did once again on Sunday when the Hoosiers left Carver-Hawkeye Arena with a 74-67 wire-to-wire win over the 23rd-ranked Hawkeyes.
After losing the last three games in Iowa City in this series, Indiana head coach Teri Moren said fifth-year captains Sydney Parrish and Chloe Moore-McNeil were fixed on getting a different result.
“They were more determined today to come in here and not go home without a win,” Moren said.
Parrish and Moore-McNeil showed their commitment to getting this win by filling up the stat sheet in a variety of different ways. Parrish tied the team lead in blocks with three and scored her second-most points of the season with 15. The other team leader, Moore-McNeil, scored 18 points in the game while harassing the Hawkeyes’ best players on defense all day.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Moren describes Moore-McNeil as the team’s heartbeat. But, this win could not have been possible for Indiana without the play of junior guard Yarden Garzon.
Garzon, who went 5-for-5 from behind the arc, gave the Hoosiers a clutch bucket whenever it seemed Iowa was fighting back in the game. As the team’s leading scorer all season long, her team-high 21 points against the Hawkeyes was much more like her than the player who turned it over six times against Northwestern.
The indication Garzon was going to have a good night from 3 could be sourced back to when she stared down the Hawkeye bench after making her first triple in the game.
“I just remembered last year here, and I didn’t want it to happen again,” Garzon said. “So, I gave them a look to let them know we were here to win the game.”
It was Indiana’s first win in Iowa City since Feb. 7, 2021, and it gives IU its third win over a ranked opponent this season after wins against No. 24 Stanford and No. 18 Baylor.
The facet of the game that allowed the Hoosiers to pull away for good was their free-throw shooting. They shot 100 percent from the charity stripe, making all 12 of their attempts in the game. Being tied for the second-best free-throw shooting percentage in the Big Ten, at 77.6 percent, allowed the team to pull away for good and will be key throughout the rest of conference play.
However, IU getting outrebounded for the fourth straight game is something they need to fix if they want to continue to succeed.
“Our bugaboo right now is rebounding, so we got to fix that,” Moren said.
The Hoosiers now sit at 12-4 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten. Up next, Indiana will play Illinois at home on Thursday, Jan. 16, with a tip-off at 7 p.m. Eastern.
