BLOOMINGTON — The Indiana women’s basketball team simply had no answer for UCLA’s Lauren Betts in a 73-62 loss at Assembly Hall on Saturday afternoon.
The 6-foot-7 forward scored a game-high 25 points (12 of 16) with 12 rebounds, three assists and two blocks to help the No. 1 team in the country win its 15th straight game. The Bruins (15-0; 4-0 Big Ten) opened the day as one of just seven remaining unbeaten teams in the country.
The Hoosiers (10-4; 2-1 Big Ten) dropped to 0-6 all-time against the nation’s No. 1 team.
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This was the first time the Hoosiers hosted the top ranked team at Assembly Hall since 1993-94 in a 70-65 loss to Penn State. Last year, they lost to a top-ranked South Carolina team in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Indiana couldn’t cut UCLA’s lead to single digits in the fourth quarter until the final minute of the game.
The Hoosiers’ off-shooting day made it hard for the them to close the gap with Betts giving UCLA automatic offense. After averaging 10.0 made 3-pointers on 44% shooting over its last four games, IU was just 4 of 21 from 3-point range and 2 of 9 in the second half as a team and its top shooter Yarden Garzon was just 1 of 8.
“I thought they were dialed in,” Indiana coach Teri Moren said, of her team. “We got really good shots, they didn’t go down. Like I told them, those shots go down and I feel like it’s going to be a different kind of game and different outcome for us.”
The ball movement that had been a hallmark of IU’s recent success also went missing. The Hoosiers only had seven assists on 21 field goals after averaging 23.2 assists during their six-game win streak in December.
Garzon still led IU in scoring with 17 points as one of three players in double-digits alongside Chloe Moore-McNeil (12 points) and Shay Ciezki (11 points).
“There is a fight to this group, a cohesiveness,” Moren said. “I’ve watched them shoot it better, I’ve watched them take care of the ball better. Give credit to UCLA, but we’re still one of the best teams in the Big (Ten).”
Indiana women’s basketball stumbles in second quarter against UCLA
Indiana ended the first quarter on a 9-0 run to make it a one-possession game after trailing by as many as 11 points, but that momentum was short-lived.
The Hoosiers didn’t score any points in the second quarter until Garzon split a pair of free throws with 2:56 to go until the half — she hadn’t missed a free-throw attempt all season (30 attempts) — and it was almost another full minute before Karoline Striplin scored their first field goal of the quarter.
They faced a 33-21 deficit at the half after going 2 of 11 as a team with seven turnovers in the quarter.
“We just really got in a rhythm of what they are trying to do,” UCLA coach Cori Close said.
Close said the focus for UCLA was on disrupting the screens IU likes to run at the top of the perimeter and chase their shooters off the 3-point line. She noted that they had six kills — a kill is getting three stops in a row — in the first half.
Indiana women’s basketball faces off against the officials
Indiana struggled nearly as much with the officiating as it did UCLA throughout the half. The officials called an incredibly tight game and that was a challenge for IU’s bigs trying to defend Betts.
There were also a series of other questionable calls when IU had the ball — the Hoosiers were called for three moving screens in the first half — that disrupted their rhythm.
During a timeout midway through the first quarter, Moren calmly vented some of her frustration to the officials over the calls. She wasn’t as reserved when she sought them out for a follow-up conversation in the second quarter as the foul trouble mounted for her team.
Moren had to be pulled back to the huddle by Sydney Parrish after going off on the refs as the crowd at Assembly Hall cheered her on. Striplin and Parrish both fouled out of the game in the fourth quarter.
“Look officiating is hard,” Moren said. “It’s hard in a really good league that has outstanding players. I don’t know the outcome had anything to do with officiating today even though there were some questionable calls that I thought happened throughout. I thought they did their best to answer those, but you miss a few, that’s just part of living with officiating.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana women’s basketball falls to top-ranked UCLA
