Indiana Women's Basketball: Grace Berger Goes Down Holding Right Knee in Friday's Win Over Auburn

In the Hoosiers' Friday night 96-81 win over Auburn, senior guard Grace Berger went down in the first quarter holding her right knee.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — In the Hoosiers' Friday night 96-81 win over Auburn, senior guard Grace Berger went down holding her right knee on Indiana's third offensive possession of the game.

“Certainly I’m concerned, the fact that she didn’t come back in," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. “I’m not even quite sure. I think the kid undercut her. I think that’s what it looked like on the sidelines."

Moren teared up in the post game press conference taking a second to gather her thoughts before being able to answer.

“I knew she was hurt cause of the look on her face when I got to her, and that’s hard” Moren said. “But what I do know about Grace is she’s resilient, she’s tough, and we’ll get her back to Indiana as quickly as we can and evaluate her, and we’ll go from there. She’s our leader, and we’ll rally around her.”

Before exiting the game to sit on the bench with her iced leg elevated across a few chairs, Berger played one minute and scored two points. When she went down, the rest had to step up and push off a defensive-minded Auburn team.

Senior forward Mackenzie Holmes said both her and Berger are co-leaders, and she knew she had to take over for her. That she did, as she scored 26 total points and tallied 12 boards tying her career best 10-for-10 from the field.

“Grace does so much for us on both sides of the ball so having her go down early in the game was difficult, but I think we knew we had to rally around each other in that moment,” Holmes said.

Moren said the main question was who was going to be the facilitator at guard besides guard Chloe Moore-McNeil? It turns out everyone did their part to make plays including freshman guard Yarden Garzon who totaled 21 points and four triples. 

Three other Hoosiers reached double figures including guards Moore-McNeil with 15, Sara Scalia with 12 and bench player Sydney Parrish with 16 just one rebound shy of a double-double.

The Hoosiers shot 54.1 percent from the field and 34.8 percent from the three-point line. Moren said she was also impressed with the 12 turnovers limit despite Berger not being in the game.

“The fact that you lose a kid like Grace and still put 96 points on the board, that’s pretty impressive. You know I think it says a lot about our toughness," Moren said.

There has been no further statement on Berger for now. Before the Hoosiers can get her back to Indiana, there is one game left versus Memphis on Saturday at 8:45 p.m. as part of the Las Vegas Invitational.

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