It might not have been a must win for Indiana women’s basketball at Alaska Airlines Arena on Monday night, but it was pretty close. 

The Hoosiers ended a three-game losing streak and avoided falling under .500 in the Big Ten with a 73-70 win over Washington. They gave themselves a nice cushion by dropping 30 points on the Huskies in the third quarter.

Indiana (13-7, 5-4 Big Ten) hit a season-high 13 3-pointers (56.5%) with Yarden Garzon doing much of the heavy lifting. Garzon scored a career-high 35 points while hitting a career-high eight triples on 10 attempts. 

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The Hoosiers improved to 3-4 against Quad 1 opponents by shutting down a late rally from Washington (13-8, 4-5). The Huskies trailed by 14 points before going on an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter while holding IU without any field goals for more than four minutes.

Garzon ended that scoreless drought by banking in a jumper through contact that set her career high with 4:31 to go in the game. She knocked down the free throw to give her team a 65-59 lead.

Washington kept on coming and tied the game multiple times down the stretch, but IU got a clutch 3-pointer from Sydney Parrish — she had 16 points and was 4 of 6 from long range — and jumper from just inside the 3-point line from Garzon in the final minute.

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Garzon gave IU some reason for optimism when she knocked down her first five shots, including a pair of 3-pointers in the first half. The junior was just 1 of 12 from the outside in the team’s previous three games. 

Indiana coach Teri Moren called her recent struggles “concerning” after a loss to Oregon considering how much the Hoosiers rely on her offensive production. 

She bested her season average (13.4 points per game) going into halftime with 15 points and that flurry of early offense was a sign of things to come. 

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Garzon hit three straight 3-pointers coming out of halftime to push IU’s lead to double digits. She surpassed 1,000-career points with the first of those outside shots and is the second Hoosiers player (Chloe Moore-McNeil) to reach the milestone this season. 

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Moren probably had a bit of déjà vu in the second quarter as Indiana gave away the lead while turning it over nine times. On Friday, Moren called out her team’s sloppy play after watching the Hoosiers turn it over seven times in the fourth quarter of a loss to Oregon. 

It’s been a season-long issue for an Indiana team averaging 14.6 turnovers per game. 

The Hoosiers have turned it over on 20% or more of their possessions five times — they turned it over on 32.4% of their possessions in the first half — and only did that four times last season. 

Indiana closed out the half with a scoring drought of more than three minutes, which allowed Washington to go into the break with a 31-29 advantage. The Hoosiers finished the second quarter with only eight points on eight field goal attempts.

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.