Holmes, Gulbe Pace No. 10 IU In Victory Over Fairfield
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Junior forward Mackenzie Holmes and senior forward Aleksa Gulbe each put up 20-plus points as No. 10 Indiana routed Fairfield, 91-58, on Thursday night inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
KEY MOMENTS
• Indiana (7-2) dictated the pace early on as it outscored Fairfield 24-4 after the game was tied 4-all in the first two minutes. It took a 26-8 lead after one behind a quarter-high nine points and four rebounds from Gulbe on an overall team clip of 71.4 percent from the field.
• Fairfield (3-5) would manage to get 19 points on the board in the second quarter but the Hoosiers shot the ball as well going into the break, amassing a 64.3 percent field goal percentage to take a 51-27 halftime lead.
• Three Hoosiers were already in double figures after the first 20 minutes, behind 14 points from senior guard Grace Berger who went 5-for-6 and had five rebounds.
• The Hoosiers would limit the Stags to just a 16.7 percent from the field in the third quarter on 2-for-12 shooting. Continuing to heat up, IU went 6-for-10 in the third to stretch its lead to 71-38.
• Freshman guard Kaitlin Peterson used her minutes to score a new career-high five points, all in the fourth quarter, and dish out three assist to go along with a season-high four points from junior forward Grace Waggoner to give the Hoosiers a boost from the bench.
NOTABLE
• Indiana’s 61.1 field goal percentage is the fifth-highest single game shooting percentage in school history. It’s the highest since the program shot 60.6 percent against Missouri State on Dec. 9, 2018.
• Holmes led the Hoosiers with 23 points on 9-of-10 shooting from the field. It is the 15th time in her career Holmes has scored 20 or more points.
• Gulbe came within a point of her career-high as she tallied 21 points and posted nine rebounds.
• Berger poured in 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field.
• Freshman guard Kaitlin Peterson had a career-high five points as she played 14 minutes for the Hoosiers.
• The Hoosiers made 16 of their first 21 shots in the game.
• Indiana used a 23-0 run in the first quarter to go up 25-4. They held Fairfield scoreless for 8:33 of game action. Mackenzie Holmes, Grace Berger and Aleksa Gulbe contributed 22 of the 23 points during the run. The trio combined for 39 of the Hoosiers 51 first half points.
• The Hoosiers 51 points in the first half are their most points in a half this season (previous 50 vs. Kentucky). The Hoosiers shot 19-of-28 (67.9 percent) from the field in the first half.
• The eight points given up by the Hoosiers in the first quarter is an opponent low for the first quarter this season.
• Indiana has outscored their opponent by a combined 63 points in their last two games (70-40 against Penn State, 91-58 against Fairfield).
• The Hoosiers held a 48-24 advantage in points in the paint.
• Berger, Holmes and Gulbe combined for 63 points on 24-of-32 shooting from the field.
• The Hoosiers shot over 50 percent from the field for the fifth game this season. The 61.1 percent shooting tonight is a season high.
• Indiana has held all opponents under 70 points this season. The Hoosiers outrebounded Fairfield 44-19.
QUOTABLE
Indiana head coach Teri Moren
“Once again, it’s a great win. I can probably hit a rewind, tape recorder, just from the other night. I thought we did a lot of really good things, offensively. I thought we were really, really good defensively. The only category that I’m disappointed with is the fact that we continue to turn the ball over, so 19 turnovers is too much for our basketball team, some of those are charges, some of those are just bad decisions on our part, being careless. But that’s the only area tonight that my goal going into tonight’s game for our team was to stay under ten, just wanted single digits and we were still not able to do that, so we got to figure that out and do so much better with taking care of the basketball. But I thought overall shooting 61 percent from the field, lot of good things. I thought we took them out of everything they wanted to do, that’s a great offensive team, veteran team that runs a lot of actions and so you’re always on alert, you can never be away from the ball and relax. I thought our kids with just the one-day prep, I know there was two, but we gave them a day off right after the Penn State game just to rest and then we resumed. We watched film and then just had the one practice yesterday to go through all of their stuff, so Coach Rhet (Wierzba) made sure that they were ready tonight for a really good Fairfield team, and I thought our kids executed on a really high level which was really nice to see.”
UP NEXT
Indiana travels to No. 21/22 Ohio State on Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network.