In its second matchup against a top-five opponent this year, Indiana was close once again, but it couldn't pull off the upset, falling to No. 4 USC 73-66. While the Hoosiers had a tremendous defensive effort, particularly on JuJu Watkins early, they just didn't make plays late in the game to get it done, similar to Indiana's loss to UCLA earlier in the month.
"Really proud of our players. It's not the result that we wanted. I thought coming down the stretch, we had a couple back-to-back turnovers that were pretty crucial" Teri Moren said postgame, pointing out how hard her team played, but mentioning that plays down the stretch led to the Indiana defeat.
IU was up by as many as 11 after a great first 12 minutes of the ballgame, mostly thanks to Chloe Moore-McNeil's defending of Watkins, holding the Trojan superstar to just one point in the first quarter.
This allowed the Hoosiers to get on a run, and they certainly took advantage of it, using the intense Assembly Hall crowd to its advantage and taking a commanding 25-14 lead, resulting in an eruption from Hoosier nation and a USC timeout.
The defense on Watkins and others gave IU the lead, and tons of momentum, but then the Trojans showed why they had won 16 of their first 17 games coming into today, turning a once 11 point Indiana lead into a six point USC advantage at halftime.
After this though, the Hoosiers battled once more, showing they that can compete with talented teams like USC, just like they did against UCLA.
The third quarter was incredibly back-and-forth, with both teams trading blows before USC ended the third with a one point lead, though Indiana showed fight throughout the entirety of the quarter.
After competing with the Trojans for the first 30 minutes, Indiana went in a run to start the fourth, taking control of the game for the first time since the beginning of the second with a 5-0 start to the fourth.
This gave Indiana a 55-51 lead with eight minutes to play, proving that the Hoosiers can play with teams of the Trojans' caliber, but the next eight minutes showed that they didn't have what it took to pull off the upset on this particular day.
In the final eight minutes of action, Indiana made just two field goals and allowed 22 points, with turnovers on offense and easy buckets allowed on defense being plentiful in the closing minutes.
Moren mentioned how her team "came down and turned it over back-to-back times, and that sort of took a little bit of the wind out of us. Because we had been trying to run good offense and really trying to put pressure on them to force them to run action, forcing them to have to guard action, and then we just turn it over on a reversal, turn it over on an entry pass, and both of those ended up in runouts."
This was the turning point in the game, as Indiana showed their fight and really did compete with the number four team in the country, but the last eight minutes proved that Indiana is close, but still isn't there yet.
"Yeah, I feel like at times we were getting great looks, and then I think at times we went away from what got us those great looks. And I think that was really important, especially when you're playing a great team like USC, you can't have that kind of slippage" Moore-McNeil said, pointing toward the fact that her team had a very promising performance to start the game, but her team didn't finish the way they wanted to offensively.
IU was close, very close, but it can't have the finish like it had against USC if it want to beat the top teams in the country like it did in the two previous years, though this isn't the same team as in year's past, and finishes like today make that clear.
"We look back and we're like, 'We hit a couple more shots and we win this game.' So they're battling and they're trying after such a poor performance the other night against Illinois, it was good to see them come back" Moren said, explaining that this was an improvement over the performance seen against Illinois.
She added, though, "But they just can't get up for the big ones. We gotta be up for all of them, because they're all so hard to win and they know that. At the end of the day, you look back, and we're gonna watch it, talk about some of the things we did well and some of the things we gotta clean up. But we gotta hit shots."
If Indiana made the plays down the stretch, we might have had a different result here, but IU couldn't make the plays when it mattered most, which was especially disappointing considering how successful it was early on.
While the Hoosiers played well, it wasn't enough, giving IU things to work on if it wants to get to that next level but, despite the loss, this one showed that it can compete with the UCLA's and the USC's of the world.
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