BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball put together a true team win in the season opener.
The Hoosiers beat FGCU 79-50 Tuesday night at Assembly Hall, with every available player on the bench seeing the floor. They had three players in double digits — nine scored multiple field goals — and 33 points from their bench.
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Indiana (1-0) also played solid defense throughout the game, regardless of the lineup on the floor. The Hoosiers forced 19 turnovers while holding the Eagles to 29.3% shooting.
While Indiana coach Teri Moren touted the team’s depth coming into the season, she’s rarely distributed such heavy minutes that far down the bench.
“If I’m being honest, not really,” Indiana guard Lenee Beaumont said when asked if she expected that kind of balance.
Beaumont made it clear that wasn’t criticizing IU’s reserves in any way.
“We have a really deep roster, very talented group, and every single one of them shows up every day — coach calls them every day, guys — and I would say that’s every single one of the girls on the team,” Beaumont said. “Just as you guys know, typically, coach doesn’t run a very deep lineup, and I’ve been here for some time.”
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The box score from Tuesday night’s win might be an early sign that Moren could be changing her ways. Indiana had 10 players clock double-digit minutes and no individual player reached the 30-minute mark.
When IU beat FGCU 82-64 last season, Beaumont played 32 minutes and Moren relied on an eight-player rotation. Indiana only had two games all last season where it didn’t have at least one player top 30 minutes.
“It’s definitely a different story,” Beaumont said. “It doesn’t matter who starts games, truthfully, everyone’s going to have a different day.”
Moren smiled over Beaumont’s initial skepticism and acknowledged having not followed through in the past about staying committed to a deeper bench.
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“I feel like I’ve sat in the same seat and talked about the depth before and in some of our other teams,” Moren said. “And then, you know, as the season starts, some of those nonconference games are different, but then once we get in the big, then it shrinks.”
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Why will it be different this season? Moren pointed to a combination of factors.
Indiana has more positional flexibility this year — she pointed to Maya Makalusky starting at the four against FGCU as an example — along with more quality front court depth with the likes of Alisa Williams and Jess Petrie and a large freshman class (Addy Nyemchek, Ashlinn James and Gigi Battle) ready to contribute.
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“Right now I will go out on a limb here, and I’m a prisoner of hope that we will continue to have the depth that I think we have,” Moren said with a smile.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Teri Moren is ‘prisoner of hope’ with her Indiana women’s basketball team
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
