Indiana Beats Murray State 112-79, Falls Short of Teri Moren's Defensive Goal

Indiana returned home to play Murray State Thursday night and beat the Racers by 33 points. Though it was an excellent night for the offense, head coach Teri Moren wasn't pleased in the post-game press conference about the team's defensive effort.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana women’s basketball reached the 100-point benchmark for the first time in three seasons, defeating Murray State 112-79 Thursday night at Assembly Hall. 

Sara Scalia led the Hoosiers with 22 points on just two 3-pointers. The starting guard made three layups and frequented the line, sinking all eight of her free throws. The team shot 21-for-28 in that category Thursday night. Mackenzie Holmes scored 20 points for the 36th time in her Indiana career after being held to just eight Sunday in the 32-point blowout loss at Stanford.

The only looming fault within the offensive performance was 19 missed layups. Nonetheless, the team converted 10 in the fourth quarter to outscore the Racers 27-11 in that span. Indiana totaled 24 assists and out-rebounded Murray State by 15, 10 from Holmes to complete her 21st-career double-double. 

Indiana faced a full-court press all game, but finished with just eight total turnovers, two of which came against the press. Holmes anticipated Murray State to full-court press the whole game because it helped the Racers trim a 30-point deficit against Arkansas to just three points earlier in the season. 

Indiana handled the press well, which staved off Murray State’s comeback attempts in the middle quarters.

"We knew that they were going to keep that press on the whole game," Holmes said. "And we just had to keep breaking it the way we were and not panic, which I thought we did a good job of.”

Aside from the offensive outburst, the Hoosiers didn’t meet head coach Teri Moren’s defensive objective.

“We were trying to keep them under 60,” Moren said. “And clearly didn't hit that mark. As to why my tone is what it is, you know, when I talk about us defensively right now.”

Indiana doubled Murray State’s points in the paint, 64-32. But the Racers shot 10-for-34 beyond the arc, whereas the Hoosiers went 7-for-19. The rest of Murray State’s points came at the free throw line. Murray State may have only shot 29% from distance, but 34 three-pointers is lofty volume and most were good looks.

“That was one of my concerns, is that if they get hot, they're more than capable of knocking down threes from beyond the arc," Moren said. "That's always concerning when right now, like you said, we're not covering up the 3-point line as well as we need to. That was part of the scouting report.”

Moren said senior point guard Chloe Moore-McNeil called the team out as “soft” defensively. Moore-McNeil is not typically Indiana's most vocal leader, but Moren said it was good to see her step up in this way. She hopes Moore-McNeil's toughness rubs off on the rest of the team.

Moving forward, Moren said she'll keep preaching toughness and what needs to be done to fix Indiana's defensive deficiencies, but she also doesn’t intend to rule with an iron fist.

“I don’t want to beat them down," Moren said. "I want to help them every way I can. I think our staff does as well. I have the utmost confidence that this group, they’re smart enough to figure it out … And sooner or later I do think it'll sink in.”

Moren also revealed starter Sydney Parrish injured her hamstring during the game and was benched for the second half as precaution. Her status for the upcoming Lipscomb game is undetermined. The Hoosiers host Lipscomb on Sunday, which provides another opportunity to clean up defensive lapses before traveling to play No. 15 Tennessee on Thursday in Florida.

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