Indiana Women's Basketball Blows Out Morehead State By 63 Points

In their second-to-last non-conference matchup of the season, the Hoosiers blew past Morehead State 87-24 led by freshman guard Yarden Garzon with 16 points followed by three other double-scoring Hoosiers and 27 points off the bench.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana women's basketball returned from a 10-day break to destroy Morehead State 87-24 starting the final non-conference home stand of the season right with all players involved.

This is the third largest margin of victory in program history since Indiana defeated Illinois 76-16 in 1974. Morehead State's 24 points are the fewest points allowed by an opponent since the 1975 game versus Taylor.

"There's a lot to be excited about," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. "Any time you get to play everybody, that's a really cool day for us."

Four Hoosiers scored in double figures led by freshman guard Yarden Garzon with 16 points off of four three-pointers and only 18 minutes. After the starters got things cooking, the bench players came in to finish the recipe adding 27 points.

"I think it's great," senior guard Sara Scalia, who had 13 points said. "Especially Mona (Zaric) coming in there hitting her shots. Lexus (Bargesser), she's always going to kind of distribute, do what she does — drive, kick.

"They had really good minutes. It just shows kind of from top to bottom our whole team how we can all score. We can all just play together."

Moren said she tried out several different lineups and liked the big one with graduate student forward Alyssa Geary at 6'4", freshman forward Lilly Meister at 6'3", sophomore forward Zaric at 6'2" and freshman guards Henna Sandvik at 6'0" and Bargesser at 5'9".

"Well I liked the big lineup," Moren said. "I like size. If you know anything about us, you know we like big guards."

Now, the Hoosiers are 11-0 for the best start in Moren's nine-year tenure and without star point guard Grace Berger, who went down with a right knee injury in the Auburn game back in late November.

Berger was seen in the warmup area with a leg brace that extended from her upper thigh to her ankle, but she was not dressed to play. However, Moren said she's hopeful Berger will be back this season.

"Her recovery is going really well," Moren said. "She's obviously off her crutches. She's doing more in practice in terms of her rehab with ball handling and shooting." 

Holmes got things started for Indiana with her signature layup and was later fouled only to swish her two free throws. 

The Eagles hit a three to bring their early deficit to three points, but Garzon followed up with a three of her own. In the very next possession, junior guard Sydney Parrish dished it out to Garzon for another successful triple.

"I think Coach puts in a lot of effort to make us make those," Garzon said. "We work in practices on stress shots." 

The Hoosiers' offense got consistently rolling as Scalia hit a big three off the backboard as part of a 20-1 run. Bargesser then finished off the frame with a fast break layup and a 28-4 Hoosier lead.

In the second quarter, Morehead State finally scored with a reverse layup to start. Garzon struck back with her third three of the game while Holmes cracked double digits off of a layup.

Morehead State was left scoreless for seven and a half minutes as the Hoosiers dominated both on offense and defense finishing the half with a 44-12 lead.

"We're very vanilla when it comes to the defensive side of the ball," Moren said. " We just understand who we can gap off of, who we can't gap off of."

Morehead State totaled 25 turnovers compared to the Hoosiers' 12. The Eagles were also limited to shooting 17.6 percent from the field off of Indiana's sound defense.

In the second minute of the third quarter, Parrish stole the ball and made a fast break layup as part of a 6-0 run which generated lots of cheers in a quiet Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

The Hoosiers then lost focus, getting four turnovers in three minutes before ironing it out with an 11-0 run including another Garzon triple.

Indiana topped off the Hoosier-heavy game with a 15-2 run as all bench players came in to send the Eagles flying back to Kentucky with a huge loss. 

Indiana finished with a 55.9 field goal, 50 three-point and 75 free throw percentage when it was all over. Moren said she'd like to improve the charity stripe production ahead of Butler on Wednesday.

"The goal is to finish our non-conference schedule the right way, and to do it the right way would be to win all of them," Moren said. "We got one more before we have a nice Christmas break and return for Big Ten play."

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• INDIANA TO FACE MOREHEAD STATE The No. 4-ranked Hoosiers will face the Morehead State Eagles in their second-to-last non-conference matchup of the season inside the Hall on Sunday. Indiana head coach Teri Moren will have the opportunity to get her best start with the program at 11-0 with a win. CLICK HERE 
• ALYSSA GEARY MOREHEAD STATE STATUS Indiana head coach Teri Moren updates forward Alyssa Geary's injury status ahead of the Morehead State game and talks about how needed the Hoosiers' 10-day game break was to get some "dinged up" players ready to go. CLICK HERE
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