A win is a win…right?
The Indiana Hoosiers improved to 3-0 as they defeated the Marshall Thundering Herd 57-51 Tuesday night at Assembly Hall in an ugly victory. Marshall’s full-court zone pressure was disastrous for IU. Twenty-eight turnovers. Twenty-one percent from 3. And no scorer above 13 points. It was the most turnovers from the Hoosiers in nearly nine years.
Head coach Teri Moren was not so happy after the game saying her team “got out of here with a win, but it doesn’t feel like there was a whole lot that went well.”
“I think we all have to, sort of, wrap our heads around the fact that you got one kid out there in Shay Ciezki who’s played a lot of minutes,” Moren said. “And then you got four other guys out there that haven’t really played meaningful minutes…that’s not an excuse.”
Early on, both teams had, essentially, nothing going right. The Hoosiers, despite leading throughout most of the period, ended the first with eight turnovers resulting in an abysmal nine points. But, it wasn’t much better for Marshall — six turnovers with just as many points. Both squads shot less than 20% from the field and neither team had a player with multiple buckets.
“We held them, I believe, to six (points in the first quarter),” sophomore Lenée Beaumont said. “We’re good with that number but offensively we’ve gotta be able to execute at a higher level.”
Ciezki led the way with only three points on three shots. But, she tied her career-high five rebounds in the quarter. Coming off a 35-point performance on Friday against UIC, she set a new milestone Tuesday: her first career double-double. After securing her 10th rebound in the third quarter, when she got to the free throw line with nine points, Assembly Hall awaited the inevitable swish, giving Ciezki another memorable moment through three games.
“We’re three games into this,” Moren said. “But, you know, the message is always, ‘When your shot’s not falling or you're not getting shots, what ways can you still impact the game?’ And I thought [Ciezki] was terrific, defensively, for us.”
Ciezki added three steals and a block to her double-double.
Despite what would appear to be a great game from Ciezki, Moren emphasized numerous times that she “has to become more of a vocal leader.”
Outside of Ciezki, the team struggled. Zania Socka-Nguemen was successful offensively scoring 13 points on 6-for-7 shooting while adding 10 rebounds, however, she had some struggles of her own.
“(Socka-Nguemen) was pretty quiet tonight,” Moren said. “She looked tired, fatigued…she got the two early fouls but she just kind of looked a little bit not as energetic as we’re used to seeing.”
A big reason for that, Socka-Nguemen said, was Marshall’s full-court zone defense.
“Me personally, I don’t like going against zone…” Socka-Nguemen said. “They challenged us and we’re going to see zone in the future so it just helps us now…we’re just going to keep getting better.”
The Hoosiers saw this defense throughout the game’s entirety. But as the game neared the final buzzer, the pressure only amped up. Marshall outscored Indiana 21-14 in the final quarter while making five of its last seven attempts from the field, giving a scare, momentarily, of a potential comeback.
“It’s those types of things you gotta show them in film and talk to them about,” Moren said. “There couldn’t have been over 10 possessions where we look like we’d worked on a press attack over the last two days.”
“This is no excuse,” Beaumont said, “but we’re still trying to figure things out as a team. It’s fresh, it’s early. We know we can’t be turning the ball over.”
Indiana has five days to regroup before heading to Tallahassee to take on the Florida State Seminoles.
