BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball buried Oakland with a barrage of offense in the third quarter to close out its non-conference schedule with a 90-55 win.
The Hoosiers (9-3; 1-0 Big Ten) pulled away with a 19-0 run coming out of halftime.
They hit as many 3-pointers during the stretch (four) as they had in the entire first half to take a 22-point lead. They scored 30 points in the quarter on 76.9% shooting (5 of 5 from 3-point range) to turn what was a two-possession game into a blowout.
“Give our kids credit, sometimes these are interesting games right before the holidays,” Indiana coach Teri Moren said. “You can be sloppy, they can check out a little bit. I thought for the most part our kids did a great job of staying focused in what we were trying to do.”
Indiana heads into Big Ten play having won five straight games and eight of its last nine. The Hoosiers have averaged 85 points over the last three games with an average margin of victory of 28 points.
The win on Sunday at Assembly Hall came with Sydney Parrish returning to the starting lineup after missing five straight games with a knee injury she suffered in the Battle 4 Atlantis. She played 19 minutes while wearing a brace on her left knee, but it didn’t seem to limit her mobility.
She hit a pair of 3-pointers during IU’s extended run in the third quarter and finished the game with 11 points and seven rebounds.
Indiana starting guard Shay Ciezki led the team with 20 points — she tied a season-high with four made 3-pointers — and forward Karoline Striplin added 16 points and five rebounds off the bench. It was Striplin’s third straight game with double-digit points, the second such longest streak of her career.
“Strip has just played really well,” Moren said. “She’s now playing with a tremendous amount of confidence for us.”
The Hoosiers set themselves up for success with tremendous ball movement throughout the game — they had 27 assists on 31 made field goals — against Oakland’s 1-3-1 zone defense and some suffocating defense of their own.
It was the second time this season that IU held an opponent to less than 60 points and they held the Golden Grizzlies to under 40% shooting while forcing 16 turnovers (10 in the second half). Moren was particularly pleased with her team getting nine kills — they define a kill as getting three straight stops — which was one higher than the goal she had set for the team.
Indiana’s final starter checked out for good with 5:15 remaining in the game.
“We’ve tried to get back being cleaner offensively, being more engaged defensively, we’ve really tried to take the days we’ve had off when there was a six-day break or seven-day break and go back and really work on the fundamentals on being a good basketball team,” Moren said. “…I do think this is a very motivated group as we break for the holiday and return to play Wisconsin.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
