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Bloomington, Ind. -- The Indiana Hoosiers women’s basketball team has been on a winning streak and is continuing to do so by beating Norfolk State 72-42. Senior forward Aleksa Gulbe stood out tonight for the Hoosiers scoring a career-high of 22 points and 12 rebounds.
Born and raised in Riga, Latvia, Gulbe is the third person from Latvia to play basketball for the Hoosiers. Gulbe has played for the Hoosiers all four years and has been an asset to the team.
“Me and Coach talked about senior year expectations,” Gulbe said. “Today there were moments where my teammates found me and all of that together made this a double-double game.”
Gulbe shot 9-for-13 from the field and 3-of-4 from deep. Her play helped carry the Hoosiers to a 26-point lead early into the fourth quarter.
It wasn't all easy for the Hoosiers, however. Indiana only led 17-14 after the first quarter, coming out a bit flat after its big win over No. 13 Kentucky on Sunday.
“Not that they overlook anyone but I thought we were flat from the very beginning of the game and really couldn’t find any great rhythm offensively to really get us going,” Head Coach Teri Moren explained. “We have 22 assists on 27 makes, which is tremendous. But certainly, I’m going to be disappointed in the fact that we turned the ball over way too much tonight.”
Junior forward Mackenzie Holmes had another high-scoring game with 22 points, shooting 11-for-15 from the field and was a spark plug for the Hoosiers at times as they started to pull away.
Graduate guard Ali Patberg had 17 points tonight with six assists, one turnover, and two steals. Senior guard Grace Berger scored just six points but had 11 out of the 22 assists for the Hoosiers.
Between Gulbe, Holmes, and Patberg, they made up 65 combined points out of the 72 points for the Hoosiers.
“Aleksa (Gulbe) was much better in the second half than she was in the first half,” Moren stated. “Thought Grace Berger was quiet offensively, yet she had 11 assists. Nikki (Cardaño-Hillary) doesn’t score and she’s been really good last two games and had some decent looks but goes 0-for-5 from the field tonight, but again this was one of those games you have to grind out and we were able to do that.”
The Hoosiers outscored the Spartans, 55-28, over the last three-quarters of the game. Indiana held Norfolk State to 25 percent shooting (15-for-60 from the field).
For the third straight game, the Hoosiers have shot over 50 percent from the field, shooting 27-for-53 tonight. The Hoosiers had a total of 22 assists out of their total 27 field goals.
The Indiana Hoosiers take on Quinnipiac on Saturday in Hamden, Connecticut. The tip-off is at 4 p.m. EST.
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