BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball will face No. 8 seed Utah in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Columbia, South Carolina.

The No. 9 Hoosiers (19-12) are making their sixth straight March Madness appearance, but they open on the road for the first time since 2022.

Here are three things to know about Utah:

Buy Indiana NCAA Tournament tickets vs. Utah

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Utah’s longtime coach Lynne Roberts resigned early this season

Roberts stepped down four games into her 10th season at Utah to become the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks head coach. The Utes finished with 20-plus wins and made the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years. She was named the 2022-23 Pac-12 Coach of the Year the second-seeded Utes reached the Sweet 16 and finished 27-5.

She was 165-116 (.587) at Utah.

“There’s tradition there,” Indiana coach Teri Moren said. “They are a winning program and they’ve been very, very successful. Their coach left to become the head coach of the LA Sparks, she didn’t leave to just get out of the game because they were bad. She left for a pro opportunity. Haven’t watched them a whole lot, but they’ve had success. There is tradition their of winning.”

Her longtime assistant Gavin Peterson, who Roberts hired when she was the head coach at Pacific, took over for Roberts. He was at the helm when Utah knocked off then No. 3 Notre Dame on Nov. 30 in the Cayman Islands Classic for the highest ranked away from home in program history.

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Utah is one of the most dangerous 3-point shooting teams in the country

Utah is one of the nation’s most prolific 3-point shooting teams. The Utes shot 37.4% from 3-point range (ranked No. 10 in the country and made 10 triples (No. 6) on 26.8 attempts per game (No. 13).

Gianna Kneepkens earned first team All-Conference honors for the third time in her career while leading her team in scoring (19.2). She shot 45% from 3-point range.

Her 244 career 3-pointers rank third in school history and this team is 14-1 in games when she hits three or more.

Guards Kennady McQueen and Maty Wilke are shooting better than 40% while averaging multiple 3-pointers. Kneepkens and McQueen are the natino’s only players with 50/40/90 shooting splits while averaging at least 10 points with more than 150 minutes played.

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Utah and Indiana have never played each other

This will be the first matchup between the teams, but the fifth former Pac 12 team IU has faced this season. The Utes were among the former Pac 12 teams — Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State — that joined the Big 12 this season.

The Hoosiers could lean on their Big 10 connections to build out a scouting report. The Utes had Northwestern and Washington on its non-conference schedule.

“We’re a league that tries to help each other,” Moren said. “We’ll do our due diligence, and trying to help Washington, they are in the field as well. Joe (McKeown) is a friend, I think he will be more than willing to give us some insight on Utah.”

Northwestern beat Utah 71-69 on Nov. 14, but the Utes pulled off a 67-57 win over Washington after trailing by 10 going into the fourth quarter.

NCAA Women’s NCAA Tournament schedule

• First Four: March 19-20
• First round: March 21-22
• Second round: March 23-24
• Sweet 16: March 28-29 (Birmingham, Spokane)
• Elite Eight: March 30-31 (Birmingham, Spokane)
• Final Four: April 4 (Tampa)
• National championship: April 6 (Tampa)

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.