Three Things: Indiana women’s basketball defeats North Carolina, 87-63

Dec 3, 2022 - 12:20 AM

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#5 Indiana women’s basketball moved to 8-0 on the year last night with an 87-63 throttling of #6 North Carolina. Assembly Hall was packed, and loud for all 40 minutes. Here’s three things:

The Usual Suspects

Best game yet for Oregon transfer Sydney Parrish. The junior guard recorded 24 points, six rebounds, and an assist in 36 minutes for the Hoosiers. Parrish shot 9-15 from the field and was particularly lethal from deep, going 4-7 on three-point attempts:

The three-ball has become a strength IU. They were 12-22 (55%) combined, and Parrish splashed two off of UNC turnovers.

Parrish’s sharpshooting was complemented nicely by senior forward Mackenzie Holmes in the paint, who led the team in scoring with 25 points. Holmes is averaging 20.6 points per game, second-most in the Big Ten.

Solid performances were also had by Sara Scalia, Yarden Garzon, and Chloe Moore-McNeil. Scalia hit four threes, Garzon had nine, seven, and seven, and CMM recorded ten, seven, and nine. They’re succeeding at replacing Grace Berger in the aggregate so far.

Given how well all five starters played, this game was never super close. Indiana got ahead and stayed there, leading the Heels by 16 at the half and 19 after three. It was a sound of a drubbing of a top ten team as you’ll ever see. Expect the Hoosiers to see a nice promotion in the AP poll next week.

Roster shuffling

With Grace Berger out, everyone’s role changes significantly. Not exactly a hard idea to wrap one’s head around but the revised rotation wasn’t what we thought it would be. No Berger means Sydney Parrish starts, and then some combination of guards Kaitlin Peterson and Lexus Bargesser off the bench right? Wrong.

Sophomore guard Kaitlin Peterson is no longer with the team, so it was freshman Henna Sandvik in as the sixth player for Indiana. She checked in with 6:53 left in the first and immediately drained a three, putting IU up 8-7.

As an international player, we don’t know a ton about Sandvik. She finished the game with three points and two rebounds in 18 minutes, the first real minutes she’s seen this year. It will be interesting to see how the Finnish Senior National team guard’s role changes over the coming weeks. Not sure what to make of it just yet.

As for Peterson’s departure, we’ll have more on that for you when we learn it. She averaged 12.7 minutes in six appearances off the bench for Indiana this season.

Insane efficiency

Indiana shot so well last night that the game almost seemed too easy. The Hoosiers were 32-60 (53.3%) from the field, and said performance brought their yearly percentage up to 52.0.

52.0!!! That’s nuts. There are only eight teams nationwide shooting above .500 as of 12/1, and Indiana’s one of them. The Hoosiers have the best shooting offense in the Big Ten, and the fourth best in all of Division I.

Indiana’s 8-0 on the year. All of their games, including those against ranked Tennessee and North Carolina have been decided by twelve points or more. They’re wiping the floor with their competition, and having fun while doing so:

The energy this group plays with is infectious. I keep expecting the classic early season slip-up but it hasn’t come yet. On the road in Knoxville? Nope. A straight up bizarre weekend in Vegas? Nah. Hosting the sixth-best team in the country without your best player? No thanks. They’re finding ways to win handily, and that bodes very well for the future.

Conference play comes next for Indiana. The Hoosiers open their Big Ten slate with a home game against Illinois on Sunday, 12/4. Tip is set for 2pm in Assembly Hall and as always, students get in free :)