Indiana women’s basketball coach made it clear that just because some of the star power left the scene from the annual Indiana-Iowa game doesn’t mean the Hoosiers took their task on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena any less seriously.

Indiana’s approach paid dividends in a 74-67 victory for the Hoosiers, their third Big Ten road victory of the season.

Teri Moren spoke to the media about the game about the triumph. Here’s what she had to say.

Opening statement …

Moren: Once again, a great crowd for Iowa. They make this place such a difficult place to win. And we’ve been on the other end of this several times, so it feels really good today to be on the other side of it and get out of here with the win. Really proud of our our guys and how hard they played. We kept the lead, we built the lead, we kept it, we didn’t lose the lead, but they obviously came crawling back at us. I felt like we just made big play after big play after big play. Of course, Yarden (Garzon) had a special night, but she’s a special player as we know. But I thought all of them. I thought Syd Parrish, Strip (Karoline Striplin) making the shot when we were only up (four) with a minute to go at the end of the shot clock. That was a huge, huge play for us. I thought Shay (Ciezki), although didn’t shoot the ball great tonight was good defensively. We’re just happy to get out of here with a win. Really pleased with my group, how hard they played. This is a difficult league, as you guys all know. Iowa is was going to be just fine. But tonight, we’re happy to be getting back on that plane and headed back to Bloomington with the win game.

On closing a late-game situation …

Moren: I think it gives our kids great confidence. But as I said to our staff, I was disappointed. We have to be so much better in late game scenarios, situations as a staff. And I thought today we failed them with that. We have to be on point with what the strategy is in those moments. Where the ball needs to be and whose hands it needs to be in and so forth. I think we were all a little bit caught off guard that they didn’t foul us and put us at the free throw line. Everybody has different strategies, right? We got to be better, but I got to be better. Our staff has to be better in order to help those kids. But I think for them, with the outcome, they’re probably thinking about the end of the game. They’re probably just thinking about getting out of here with the win.

On Indiana’s defensive effort in holding Iowa to 33.9% shooting …

Moren: That’s every night in the Big 10. You have to have a tremendous defensive effort. Playing here, playing Iowa, was no different. We knew it was going to take a great effort from every one of us. There were moments where we gave up some stuff, but they’re really good. They’re really good offensively, and they got great tradition, and Jan (Jansen) is doing a terrific job. Very competitive environment, and the crowd just makes it that much better because of how much they’re into it. But part of our strategy was to try to keep the crowd as quiet as we could today, and we did, and then we didn’t at times. Our bugaboo right now is the rebounding. I think, the third game, fourth game that we’ve gotten out rebounding. And so we’ve got to fix that.

On a technical foul on Iowa’s Sydney Affholter …

Moren: They didn’t even give me an explanation. I think you know she had scored, so I think there was probably some excitement on her part. And I think you’re not supposed to ever touch the ball after that. Normally, it is a warning, but I don’t know if they felt it was excessive. I kind of missed it, and so they didn’t really give me an explanation, I’m sure you’d have to ask Jan that.

On Karoline Striplin …

Moren: She was, as Shay was, such a great piece for us to get out of the portal. She’s been steady defensively. They (Striplin and Lilly Meister) have different frames, right? So they guard differently in the fact that they both guard hard, but Lilly doesn’t have the girth, I guess, that that Strip has. Offensively, a little bit different, but they can both stretch it out, even though you didn’t see him do that tonight. Strip has hit some big time shots for us. She was perfect at Penn State. But the one tonight, at the end of the shot clock, the one in the first half on the baby baseline there, that was a big shot for us as well. She’s been dependable and we’re so grateful that she chose to come here and spend her last year with us.

On Chloe Moore-McNeil …

Moren: She’s our leader. And we’ve been on the other side of this, as you guys know, right? She and Syd both were that more determined today to come in here and not go home without a win. She’s our heartbeat. She’s our leader. And once again, she was really good.

On Sydney Parrish playing with foul trouble …

Moren: Syd’s really smart, a high IQ kit and so understands how important it is for her to be in the game for us. There’s a lot of trust there with Syd, trusting that she’s not going to be reckless and pick up some cheap foul that she can play within herself, but still help us and still be aggressive. And then Yarden was just – the other night against Northwestern, where she was not very good, she’d be the first one to tell you that. She had six turnovers, didn’t shoot it great. So for her to bounce back, but that’s just Yarden. Yarden is built for moments, right? Somebody asked about her first one, even if that didn’t go in, she was going to keep shooting because that’s just Yarden. Tonight she certainly had a special night.

After the star battles of recent seasons, did it help to have the heat turned down a bit for this season’s matchup …

Moren: Well, I don’t know who turned it down. We certainly didn’t. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Iowa. Always have. Even though Lisa (Bluder, former Iowa coach) is no longer here, we have a tremendous amount of respect. Jan was on her left side for a lot of years. This is an excellent program that’s been left in excellent hands. We didn’t approach it any different. We really didn’t. It was, we’re going to go into a place where the crowd is going to be into it, they’re going to be terrific, and our job is to go in there and try to keep them as quiet as we could. I don’t know who said that but that is never a conversation in in our locker room.

2025 kicker out of Bettendorf, Caden Buhr committed to Iowa as a preferred walk-on (PWO) on Sunday morning. A five-star prospect according to Kohl’s Kicking, Buhr is set to serve as depth at the position behind Drew Stevens this coming season. He will enroll in January.

Buhr also received interest from Arkansas, Missouri and Vanderbilt prior to his commitment.

One of the top kicker’s in the state of Iowa the last two seasons, Buhr earned first-team all-state honors the last two seasons in class 5A. He also made a school-record 57-yard field goal as a senior.

During his junior campaign for the Bulldogs, Buhr made 7-of-9 field goal attempts with a long of 52 yards and made 40-of-43 extra point attempts. He also booted 61 kickoffs with 49 touchbacks. He also punted 30 times for 1,114 yards, an average of 37.1 yards per punt.

As a senior, he made 6-of-11 field goals, with the aforementioned career long of 57 yards. He made 18-of-20 extra point attempts, and registered a touchback on 28-of-31 kickoffs. Buhr punted the ball nine times for 373 yards, an average of 41.4 yards per boot.

Can we get that two hours back?

Save for a brief first half glimmer, this one was never a contest.  Iowa opened with a 21-8 run to start the game.  Indiana did respond with a 20-4 run of their own to take a 28-25 lead with 6:38 left in the first.  But it was all Hawkeyes from there.  They closed the half on an 18-5 run, and opened the second with another 21-7 outburst.  Game, set, match.

Let’s take a deeper look at how IU lost 85-60 with our latest edition of The Report Card.

Indiana (13-4, 4-2) will next host Illinois on Tuesday evening in Bloomington.

COACHING (F)

We’ve written frequently here about Indiana not starting games ready to play.  And we’ve wondered if they’d be able to recover against better teams on the road.  Well, Mike Woodson hasn’t figured out how to get his team off to fast starts, and we got our answer in Iowa City.

Indiana got outhustled, out-schemed, and outmaneuvered.  Iowa played harder, moved with more purpose, and ran better stuff.  The Hoosiers looked lost, confused, and at times even disinterested.

Woodson did appear to be trying to find a lineup that would play with sustained effort.  And he got the good first half run from his bench.  But no amount of tinkering with the lineup is going to help a team that isn’t prepared to compete at this level.

If this is how this 11-game stretch of NCAA NET Quad-1 games is gonna go, buckle up.

OFFENSE (F)

The Hoosiers set the tone for the entire evening with seven turnovers in the first five minutes of the game.  Iowa scored 13 points off those miscues, and IU was on their heels.

Indiana didn’t appear ready for Iowa’s zone press, even though it’s been a part of Fran McCaffery’s system for years.  They were careless with the basketball, and committed 12 first half turnovers and 16 for the game.

Shooting it poorly from both two and three, IU had their third lowest effective field goal percentage of the season, trailing only the Nebraska and Louisville losses.  They had their lowest offensive rebounding percentage (24.3%) since Dec. 3, and IU didn’t get to the free throw line either, with just 13 attempts for the game.

The offense seemed limited to just putting the ball in the hands of Myles Rice and asking him to create something.

And the result was just .84 points per possession, Indiana’s lowest mark of the season — against a defense that was ranked outside of the top-100 in defensive efficiency.

DEFENSE (C)

Iowa has a good offense, and IU did very little to slow them down.  The Hawkeyes scored 1.18 points per possession, the fourth most they’ve allowed in a game this season.

How much of this bad defense was a result of bad offense?  Some of it, and that’s why we won’t go straight F’s here. A lot of IU’s offensive mistakes set up transition points before the Hoosiers could get set up.  Iowa had 24 points off turnovers and 26 fast break points.

And Indiana did force eight first half turnovers.  That helped fuel their lone rally.  But it wasn’t nearly enough.

The Hoosiers couldn’t lose track of Iowa’s best shooters — namely Payton Sandfort and Josh Dix — who combined to make 8-of-14 from deep.  Indiana helped off of them enough to give them the space they needed to get hot.   As a team Iowa made 6-of-13 from three in the second half to crush any hopes of an IU rally.

And probably just as disturbing, Iowa made 60% of their shots from two.  Indiana was a step slower than Iowa seemingly all night, and it really showed on this end of the floor.

MORE GAME COVERAGE

THE PLAYERS (*starters)

*Mackenzie Mgbako (F) This was a second straight dud performance from Mgbako, a player critical to Indiana’s success.  And right or wrong, he’s not being allowed to play through his mistakes, including a foul on a three-pointer that got him benched.  Mgbako only played 16 minutes.

*Myles Rice (C) Rice played well at times, but he was asked to do too much.  With Iowa doubling Oumar Ballo and sticking to shooters, it was left to Rice to beat the Hawkeyes.  But he can’t do it all.  He got his shot blocked several times in the paint.  But this loss was by no means on Rice.

*Trey Galloway (F) This may have been Galloway’s worst game of his college career.  No points and four turnovers from a fifth-year senior?  It was hard to see this coming after a run of good play.  Indiana needs this to be a one-off occurrence.

*Luke Goode (F) Goode made a three, but he wasn’t a major factor.  After several games with good rebounding numbers he had zero.  When run off the three-point line he struggled to be an offensive threat.  And Goode was part of IU’s struggle to guard Iowa’s shooters.

*Oumar Ballo (D) Ballo was a major factor in Indiana’s slow start with four turnovers in the first five minutes.  Although he ended up posting respectable stats, the effort just wasn’t there early, and that played a major role in setting a negative tone for the game.

Kanaan Carlyle (C) Carlyle did look confident at times, especially his first couple shots of the first half.  But it took him 12 shots to score nine points.  Indiana needs this to be the start of something positive.

Bryson Tucker (C) Tucker provided some positive first half minutes and played well when Indiana went on their run.  But this still wasn’t an efficient effort overall, and until he develops a rhythm from three there will be peaks and valleys.

Anthony Leal (B) Leal’s five assists highlight his effort to create something out of IU’s inept offense.  Indiana’s best stretches were with Leal on the floor.  That’s not the first time, probably won’t be the last.

Langdon Hatton (B-) Hatton’s contributions were generally positive.  He might not be the biggest or most athletic post player, but he competes and has his moments.

Dallas James did not play, coach’s decision.

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Malik Reneau was out with a knee injury.  Gabe Cupps and Jakai Newton are out long-term with injuries.

The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”

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