Indiana women's basketball has lost three straight games for the first time since the 2022-23 season. To start the Hoosiers’ first-ever road trip to the West Coast with the new additions to the Big Ten, Indiana didn't have a pretty showing.
The Hoosiers maintained control for the majority of Friday’s game against Oregon up until the fourth quarter, where they struggled with turnovers. Careless turnovers and sloppy care of the basketball let the Ducks take the lead late and come out on top 54-47.
Since conference play began for Indiana, it has been a marathon. With the expansion of the Big Ten to the West Coast, it has risen to the top conference in the nation and is more daunting than ever before. Indiana has seen the effect take over as they drop to 4-4 in Big Ten play.
Heading into the matchup, Oregon led the conference in forced turnovers per game with 19. While heading into the matchup, it was one of Indiana’s struggles as they averaged 14.6 per game.
“You’re not going to win games when you can't value the ball. We did not do that tonight,” head coach Teri Moren said.
It was a quick tempo to start the game, and the Hoosiers came out strong and portrayed the energy that Moren emphasized after the loss to USC. However, both teams struggled on offense and couldn't find a rhythm. That was until Oregon’s graduate student guard Peyton Scott caught fire in the second frame and scored eight points to keep the Ducks in the game.
The first half for Indiana showed improvement however as the defense was forcing Oregon to take tough shots and limited the amount of fouls in the paint. Yet when both teams were looking to feed the paint, the bigs struggled to catch the inbound pass. On each end defenders were locking down in the paint which made it so difficult for both ends to get the ball inside. Oregon finished with 30 points in the paint while Indiana finished with 26.
Graduate student guard Sydney Parrish made her return to Oregon after transferring after one season with the Ducks. Parrish came out aggressive, finishing with 10 points, five rebounds, four assists and two blocks.
At one point, Indiana led by as many as 10 points in the second half, even when both teams continued to be inconsistent on offense. It didn't take long for the Ducks to erase the 10-point deficit, as they did so off fast-break points in three minutes. While all the attention was on 6-foot-8 senior center Phillipina Kyei, the Ducks utilized freshman forward Ehis Etute, who finished the night with nine points and eight rebounds in 16 minutes and took over the paint in the third quarter.
Senior forward Karoline Striplin led Indiana with 14 points and five rebounds as she was the reliable source of buckets throughout the game. Junior guard Yarden Garzon also finished with eight points and 10 rebounds despite a poor shooting performance of 4-for-14 from the field.
Suddenly, when the Hoosiers thought they were finding a spark to run away with the game, Oregon was down only two points in the final quarter.
“We were sloppy, we were careless, very disappointing how we didn’t handle ourselves well enough in that fourth set,” Moren said.
In the first moments of the fourth quarter, the Hoosiers were called for a five-second call; that call seemed to define the final frame. With 4:24 left, the Hoosiers had a three-point lead that came crashing down quickly. It was then, with 2:10 left, that they committed three straight turnovers to let Oregon have a three-point lead instead. For the last 3:56, Indiana committed four turnovers with six turnovers in the quarter to allow the Ducks to come in front.
Each turnover was a careless mistake by Indiana, where the guards were simply trying to figure out who is running the play.
“Watching Chloe (Moore-McNeil) and Shay (Ciezki) get it taken from them when they’re just trying to make an exchange because I wanted Chloe at the point or Shay at the point,” Moren said. “Some of our actions were that we were running so very careless, and they were careless, or Oregon was physical with us.”
Indiana also only had one field goal in the game's last 5:09. Oregon finished the game on a 12-2 run on its way to its third straight win, handing Indiana its third consecutive loss.
“I think after a loss the only way is up,” Striplin said. “I think that you just really have to lock in and correct the mistakes. And I think that with the games that we’ve been losing, just critical errors down the stretch and things that we can clean up.”
The West Coast trip continues for Indiana (12-7, 4-4 Big Ten) as they now travel to Washington (13-7, 4-4 Big Ten) for a matchup against the Huskies at Alaska Airlines Arena with tip-off at 9 p.m. on Jan. 27 on Big Ten+.
