Injury-riddled IU exits Big Ten tourney early
MINNEAPOLIS — IU women’s basketball coach Teri Moren really didn’t want to use her star center, Mackenzie Holmes, in Friday’s quarterfinal of the Big Ten tournament.
Holmes suffered an injury to her left knee last Sunday in the regular-season finale against Maryland. In the same game, her backup, Lilly Meister, injured her ankle. Meister was good to go by Friday. Holmes was available, but Moren wanted her to stay on the bench.
“Our goal was to be here ‘till Sunday. She was available,” More said. “We knew she was going to be available. We didn’t want to have her play. We wanted to be able to, you know...”
Moren paused, as if she was looking for the right thing to say.
“Use her tomorrow more.”
The problem was, tomorrow never came. At least for the 14th-ranked Hoosiers. No. 3 seed IU was upset by No. 6 Michigan, 69-56, in the Hoosiers’ first game of the Big Ten tournament.
“I know what this group is capable of,” guard Sydney Parrish said. “I know we could have made it to championship Sunday. I know we’re one of the best teams in the league, if not the best ... I know we’re enough and I know we have enough pieces, even with Mackenzie and Lilly battling some injuries and stuff, I know we have enough pieces to be able to be a championship team. Just pretty disappointed.”
It was a day of upsets in Minneapolis, as three of the four teams with doublebyes (No. 1 Ohio State, No. 4 Michigan State, No. 3 IU) fell on Friday. No. 2 Iowa was the only team to make it out unscathed.
But that fact doesn’t make any of the Hoosiers’ torment subside. This is the second unranked loss for IU this season.
Of its five total losses, three (Iowa, Ohio State, Stanford) came against top-15 teams.
“It stings. It really does,” Moren said. “Especially when they’re such a great group and they’re so connected. We’ve had a great year, have been in some really tough battles in which we’ve won, a couple that we’ve lost . ... It stings that we kind of limped into this tournament, but I still admire this group and love them and appreciate them giving everything they had.”
Indiana started Yarden Garzon, who usually plays the 3, at the 5 on Friday night for a five-guard lineup. Garzon is as tall as Holmes, listed at 6-3, but her specialty comes more in shooting 3pointers, not fighting through the paint. Still, the Hoosiers rolled through the first half with relative ease, heating up in the second quarter to take a 14-point lead into halftime. At that point, it seemed like Holmes could sit out for the rest of the game with no issue.
But the second half came, and the Hoosiers started falling apart.
Parrish, who missed nine games this season with a foot injury, seemed to tweak something in her leg at the beginning of the third quarter. She limped off the court, briefly going into the locker room before returning to the bench, then checking back in four minutes of game time later.
In Parrish’s absence, Michigan went on a 9-3 run.
“It’s March, things happen,” Parrish said. “It’s frustrating having to leave the court, but I wanted to be out there and help as much as I could. Got to shake things off and get back on the court.”
But at that point, IU’s curse of sluggish third quarters had taken over. Michigan shot 7-of-12 from the floor in the third, outscoring the Hoosiers 19-8.
IU still held a three-point lead going into the fourth, with a chance to turn it around.
The negative momentum continued into the fourth quarter, though, and Michigan started off the final frame with a 12-5 run and took the lead away. That’s when Holmes looked at Moren and said, “I’m ready to go in, see if I can help.”
Holmes came in around the 7-minute mark with the Hoosiers down four, with the intention of stopping the bleeding. But it seemed like it was too little, too late. Michigan outscored IU 17-8 in the final seven minutes of the game, serving the Hoosiers a 16-point loss.
“I felt like we were all just guilty of trying to do a little bit too much as individuals,” Moren said. “That’s what I love about this group so much because they want to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing is maybe being guilty of forcing shots and not taking better care of the ball ... It’s a hard lesson, but I think we’ve been in those scenarios before where we’ve had a lead, we’ve been able to maintain a lead. Tonight we weren’t. A lot of that has to do with Michigan, but tonight I just thought, like I said, we kind of lost our way there in critical moments.”
While Holmes was limited on Friday night, Moren had a positive outlook for the center in the NCAA tournament. Last season, Holmes injured her knee during the conference tournament, which forced her to limit her minutes in both the Big Ten and NCAAs.
This season, it at least happened before the postseason. Moren anticipates both Holmes and Meister to be back at near-full strength by the time the NCAA tournament starts in two weeks.
“The two weeks in between is going to be really, really important for this group to get healthy,” Moren said. “I think when the NCAA tournament gets here, I think we’ll feel a whole lot different and much, much better.”