After generating some positive momentum following a rough start, Indiana women’s basketball took a big step back.
In the Battle 4 Atlantis opener, Indiana defeated Columbia, which is rated No. 55 in Bart Torvik’s T-Rank. Then the Hoosiers knocked off No. 18 Baylor on Sunday, their second ranked win in eight days. But in the championship game on Monday, they ran out of gas. IU completely collapsed in the second half against No. 16 North Carolina as the Tar Heels ran away with a 69-39 victory.
IU (4-3) shot 29 percent from the field, and 21 percent in the second half. The Hoosiers went 0 for 13 from 3-point range after halftime, putting them at 4 for 26 on the day. They also totaled only seven assists with 16 turnovers. North Carolina (6-1) held Indiana to just seven points in the third quarter and six in the fourth, and the Tar Heels posted an 11-for-23 clip from 3-point range.
Chloe Moore-McNeil took the blame for the team’s poor performance, even though it wasn’t all because of her. She finished with eight points — second on IU behind only Yarden Garzon (10 points) — along with three rebounds, three assists, a block, a steal, and a turnover.
“Baylor was a great team, Columbia was a great team. And then we get hype and we’re ready for North Carolina, and then it’s just … that wasn’t us today. That wasn’t us at all,” Moore-McNeil said after the game. “And I take full responsibility, as one of our leaders, because I can’t allow that to happen, and the coaches, they can get on us all they want and hype us up and keep us positive, but at the end of the day, it’s got to be on us as players to get it together.”
Three games in three days is challenging for any program, and Indiana won’t experience that for the rest of the season. But its overall performance in this game, after losing Sydney Parrish to injury on Sunday, has resurfaced some of the concerns it displayed through the first two weeks of the season.
The Hoosiers struggled to match North Carolina’s physicality, something that became an issue during the Brown, Harvard, and Butler games. Lilly Meister (1 for 7 shooting, two points, three rebounds) was particularly ineffective, and Shay Ciezki (2 for 8, 1 for 5 3-point, five points) cooled off after her 34-point explosion against Baylor.
“Today, we just didn’t have the urgency level for 40 minutes that we needed, and that was disappointing,” IU head coach Moren said. “But a lesson learned. I think our kids, we would all agree that this was not our finest 40 minutes, but we’ll have to respond once we get back to Bloomington and get ready for the next opponent.”
Sophomore Jules LaMendola stepped into the starting lineup in Parrish’s spot, and she was one of IU’s better players overall. The wing grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds to go with six points on 2-of-8 shooting, and she was one of two Indiana rotation players who didn’t commit a turnover.
The Hoosiers did make positive strides in the Bahamas with their first two games. Ciezki’s huge output against Baylor has to be a confidence-booster after she endured a difficult start to the season. Lexus Bargesser saw her first game action, playing 10 minutes against Columbia, 26 against Baylor, and 14 against UNC. And both wins — along with the victory over Stanford preceding this event — will help balance out the Harvard and Brown losses on IU’s resume.
But Parrish’s injury casts renewed doubt on Indiana’s long-term outlook, particularly if the graduate student will miss extended time.
Moren is unsure how long Parrish will be out — the program won’t know more until it returns to Bloomington. And for a team that had trouble jelling beginning the season, this presented another obstacle to adjust to. And though it’s only one game under abnormal circumstances, the Hoosiers struggled to do that on Monday.
And regardless of Parrish’s status, it’s clear that the Hoosiers still have weaknesses to address.
“It’s going to be another adjustment period because we don’t know how much longer Syd’s going to be out. But we’ll have to get back to Bloomington and start to figure out how we can move our pieces around and how we can put a five on the floor that can hopefully jell quicker than we’ve been able to,” Moren said. “I thought we made some improvements, we grew a little bit here in the Bahamas, it’s just a shame that Syd went down yesterday in the Baylor game.”
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