Indiana Women's Basketball Drops Its First Big Ten Game of the Season to Michigan on the Road

Coming off of a 15-day break, the Hoosiers appeared rusty and lacked fluidity on offense, Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. The Wolverines capitalized on its first win over a top five ranked team at home in program history defeating Indiana 65-50.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — After a 15-day break due to COVID-19 protocol, No. 5-ranked Indiana dropped its first Big Ten game of the season to the No. 6-ranked Michigan Wolverines on the road 65-50.

"I did think we looked like a team that had been off for a couple weeks and looked rusty," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said.

For an ecstatic Michigan, this is its first win against a top five team at home in program history. Senior forward Naz Hillmon, who is coming off of the Big Ten Player of the Week Honor Role, scored 21 points for the Wolverines and created problems for Indiana's defense.

"Naz is terrific," Moren said. "She is not an easy post player to guard. We've probably done the best job on her in the past in terms of getting her in foul trouble or trying to disrupt her and making it a little more difficult."

Moren added that senior forward Aleksa Gulbe did a great job guarding Hillmon while sophomore forward Kiandra Browne struggled to keep up. Moren said guarding a player of Hillmon's caliber will serve Browne well in future games.

Graduate student guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary led the Hoosiers with 21 points in the absence of junior forward Mackenzie Holmes, who's out with a knee injury.

Moren confirmed Holmes will be out for a while and told her players after the game they need to do better.

"They're going to have to make up almost 20 points and eight rebounds," Moren said. "That's what we're losing with Mack."

That didn't happen tonight as the Hoosiers shot 33.3 percent from the field and were out-rebounded 52-20.

"We're a better shooting team than that," Moren said. 

In the first quarter, the Hoosiers fell behind by 10 points but made up the deficit off steals that turned into buckets from Gulbe and Cardaño-Hillary. 

Down by five heading into the second quarter, Indiana went 3-for-3 including a three pointer from Cardaño-Hillary who tied up the game at 21. 

Spot up.

It's good.@nikkich_14 pic.twitter.com/j8ZFhLnn5B

— Indiana Women’s Basketball (@IndianaWBB) February 1, 2022

"They came out and punched us pretty good in the mouth the first couple minutes, and I love how we responded," Moren said.

Moren said she was happy with her team's defensive efforts, especially when the team's offense lacked rhythm.

This tie was short lived as the Hoosiers found themselves in a five-minute scoring deficit while Michigan took on a nine-point lead. Graduate student guard Ali Patberg's bucket ended the Hoosiers' drought.

At the break, the Hoosiers trailed 32-30 but fell apart in the third quarter by only scoring six points.

"Some of our shots we normally make — they're not falling, and sometimes you have games like that," Cardaño-Hillary said.

The Hoosiers fell behind by 16 points in the fourth but slowly chipped away to bring the gap back to single digits with just more than three minutes to play. Then, the Hoosiers went scoreless again until the clock expired.

"For those that know Indiana, we won't back down," Cardaño-Hillary said. "The fact that we didn't give up shows a lot for our team, and unfortunately not giving up didn't get us a win this time, but we're definitely going to learn from this whole game," Cardaño-Hillary said.

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