Indiana women’s basketball received its sixth straight at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. The Hoosiers are a No. 9 seed in the Columbia, South Carolina Subregional and will play the No. 8 seed Utah Utes at 1:30 p.m. EST Friday on ESPN2.
The Utah Utes went 22-8 in their first season in the Big 12. The Utes tied for fourth place in the conference and were rated No. 26 in the latest NET Rankings. Utah’s biggest win of the season came against the then-No. 3 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Cayman Island Classic back in November.
The biggest player to watch out for Utah is junior guard Gianna Kneepkens. She was named to the All-Big 12 First Team after averaging 19.0 points per game and shot 51.3% from the field, 45.3% from the beyond the arc, and 90.5% from the free-throw line.
If the Hoosiers do advance past the Utes, it does not get any easier with the No. 1 seed and defending national champion South Carolina Gamecocks potentially waiting in the second round. Indiana is familiar with the Gamecocks as they lost to them 79-75 last season in the Sweet Sixteen.
Although Indiana will not host the first two rounds as it has the past three seasons, the team is not worried about Hoosier Nation not being with them.
“They always show up for us, whether it’s here in Assembly or away in South Carolina,” graduate student guard Chloe Moore-McNeil said. “So, I have no doubt it’ll be the same as here.”
