No. 5 IU Falls On The Road At No. 6 Michigan
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – No. 5 Indiana dropped its first Big Ten game of the 2021-22 season as it fell to No. 6 Michigan on the road, 65-50, at Crisler Center on Monday night.
KEY MOMENTS
- Indiana fell behind by as many as 10 in the opening frame but made-up ground late in the frame on senior guard Grace Berger and senior forward Aleksa Gulbe steals turned into buckets. Facing a five-point deficit going in to the second quarter, Indiana opened up play going 3-for-3 including a corner triple from graduate student guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary to tie the game.
- But Indiana fell into another offensive lull, this time a going scoreless for a five-plus minute stretch. Michigan built its lead back to nine, but a rebound from Berger led to a transition bucket for Patberg to get back on the board.
- Capitalizing on 17 turnovers by the Wolverines in the first half, Indiana found itself trailing by just two at the break, 32-30.
- Offensive woes came back in the third for Indiana, who scored just six points, as Michigan built a 12-point lead heading to the fourth.
- Trailing by as many as 16 with just over eight minutes to go in the game, Indiana cut the deficit to single digits with just over three minutes to play on a drive to the rim by Berger. However, the Hoosiers would go scoreless again, this time until the end of regulation.
NOTABLE
- Cardaño-Hillary scored a team-high 16 points, 8 steals, five rebounds and two assists. Her eight steals ties her for fourth most in a game in school history as she finished just one swipe shy of the single game record.
- Joining her in double figures included Berger (13 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists) and graduate student guard Ali Patberg (10 points).
- Indiana shot just 33.3 percent on the night and got outrebounded 52-20.
- IU’s 14 steals were a season-high and turned 25 Michigan turnovers in to 21 points.
QUOTABLE
Indiana head coach Teri Moren
“Disappointed that we didn’t play very well tonight. We’re not a program that makes excuses, but I do think we looked like a team that had been off for a couple weeks and looked really rusty and had no real rhythm, no fluidity in anything we did offensively but on the flip side of that, I loved our effort defensively. We’re not a pressing team and we felt like in order for us to stay in the game we had to do some different things and I loved how hard we played. But it wasn’t enough tonight to beat Michigan so we’re disappointed, but I do know this, I know my group better than anybody, we’ll bounce back and we’re going to be better because of the experience we had here tonight. That’s a good Michigan team. I don’t want to take anything away from them and Kim (Barnes Arico) and the job that she and her staff and the year they’re having so far, it’s a really good team. I’m really proud of the way they came out and punched us and I thought we responded and then we missed layups, we missed free throws and I think the score could have looked different at halftime as I told our group and we felt really good coming out in the second half, it’s just the third quarter really bit us.”
UP NEXT
The Hoosiers return home to host Minnesota on Thursday night. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. ET.