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Bloomington, Ind. – After a 15-day break due to the COVID-19 protocols, the No. 5 Indiana Hoosiers lost its first Big Ten game of the season, Monday night, to the No. 6 Michigan Wolverines on the road in Ann Arbor, 65-50.

“Disappointed that we didn’t play very well tonight,” Head Coach Teri Moren stated. “We’re not a program that makes excuses, but I do think we looked like a team that had been off for a couple of weeks and looked really rusty and had no real rhythm, no fluidity in anything we did offensively but on the flip side of that, I loved our effort defensively.”

The Hoosiers shot 33.3 percent throughout the night and got outrebounded 52-20. Indiana defensively stole the ball at a season-high and turned the 25 Wolverines turnovers into 21 points. The Hoosiers started off slowly as they fell behind by as many as 10 points within the first quarter. While falling behind 5 points going into the second quarter, Indiana opened up by going 3-for-3 from graduate student guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary to tie the game.

The Hoosiers fell into another offensive struggle, being scoreless for over five minutes throughout the second quarter. But, while the Wolverines had 17 turnovers in the first half, the Hoosiers came back only to trail behind by 2 points at the half.

“I’m really proud of the way they came out and punched us and I thought we responded and then we missed layups, we missed free throws and I think the score could have looked different at halftime as I told our group and we felt really good coming out in the second half, it’s just the third quarter really bit us,” Moren explained.

Throughout the third quarter, the Hoosiers struggled offensively only scoring six points, while the Wolverines built a 12-point lead going into the fourth.

“You’re going to have fatigue within a game like everyone is saying especially coming off 10 days off or more for some of us,” Nicole Cardaño-Hillary said. “But as I said, I’m not going to give ourselves excuses or anything but I would say that fatigue is a part of every game.”

Nicole Cardaño-Hillary was a key player defensively for the Hoosiers scoring a high of 16 points, 8 steals, five rebounds, and two assists. Cardaño-Hillary 8 steals tied her for fourth place for the most steals in a game within school history. She was just one steal away from recording a single-game career record.

“The fact that we didn’t give up, I think it shows a lot for our team,” Cardaño-Hillary stated. “Unfortunately, not giving up didn’t get us the win this time, but we are definitely going to learn from this whole game. We got a quick turnaround so we gotta get ourselves back into the gym and look forward.”

The Hoosiers will return home to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall to host the Minnesota Gophers on Thursday night. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. ET.

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