3 thoughts on Indiana women’s basketball 96-43 win over Eastern Illinois

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren has taken the program to new heights during her tenure.

She’s reached plenty of coaching milestones along the way— she’s already IU’s all-time winningest coach — and added another one to the list on Friday night thanks to a 96-43 win over Eastern Illinois in the season-opener.

The victory was her 400th career win.

“I was just told yesterday that I was that close,” Moren said. “It’s stuff that I don’t pay attention to.”

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It wasn’t something she brought up to her players in the pregame and they might wish she didn’t bring it up after the game either.

“As I said to them when they congratulated me on my 400th win, I said we can shoot 400 free throws tomorrow,” Moren said, referring to her team going 2 of 11 from the line.

She might not have been kidding considering it was the worst free-throw shooting night for the team in a long time. Indiana has only shot worse than 40% from the free-throw line once going back to 2018-19 (4 of 11 in a loss to Ohio State on Jan. 13, 2018).

The Hoosiers shot 76.5% from the line last year.

It was the only thing she could nitpick at when looking at the final box score, and it was seriously hard to tell if she was joking or not.

Here's three thoughts from the win:

1. Indiana's stifling defensive effort was impressive

Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren was concerned about her team’s recent defensive effort going into the season-opener against Eastern Illinois on Friday night.

Moren’s worries were mostly unfounded.

While the teams traded off baskets in the opening minutes, the Hoosiers put together an impressive defensive effort in the 96-43 win. They held the Panthers to 30% shooting (16 of 53) and forced 22 turnovers.

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“I really had to emphasize the last eight or nine days how much better we have to be on that side of the ball,” Moren said.

The messaging worked.

Indiana’s most impressive stretch came when the Hoosiers held EIU without a field goal for seven minutes in the third quarter with the second unit doing a lot of that heavy lifting.

During a media timeout with 4:50 to go in the game, Moren adjusted her team’s defensive goal for the night given how well they were playing while leading 86-36.

“Our defensive goal was to keep them under 60, we were clearly going to achieve that,” Moren said. “I changed the goal to hold them to 42 instead.”

They fell just short thanks to a jumper from Ella Lune with three seconds left, but that one late basket didn’t spoil what Moren conceded was a strong time-wide effort.

2. Why Mackenzie Holmes clocking out early is an exciting development

Holmes filled up the box score with 19 points (9 of 10), six rebounds, two assists and four blocks, but the stat Moren was most excited about was the 18 minutes she played.

Moren is serious about limiting some of the wear and tear after watching her All-American forward deal with a knee injury at tournament time each of the last two seasons. Holmes only played fewer than 20 minutes twice last season.

The goal this year is to make sure Holmes gets more consistent rest and Friday was a good start. She got extended rest in the first and second quarters — IU extended its lead with Holmes on the bench — and only played four minutes in the second half.

3. IU in capable hands with Bargesser on the floor

Lexus Bargesser didn’t get a ton of playing time as a true freshman.

That looks like it will change this season after she matched her career-high with 23 minutes in the season-opener.

She was the first player off the bench and was the team’s floor general for much of the second half with IU’s starters going to the bench early. Bargesser pushed the ball down the court as much as she could to help the Hoosiers put up 30 fastbreak points.

“It gives us an edge over the other team, we are super willing to run,” Bargesser said. “...We are going to need it in tighter games.

Bargesser is super quick off the dribble and her step gave Eastern Illinois defenders problems all night. She was also active on the defensive end of the floor and frustrated Eastern Illinois starting point guard Miah Monahan with her tenacious pursuit.

She had a career-high 15 points (7 of 7 shooting) with two rebounds and three assists.

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on Twitter @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Everything that stood out in Indiana women's win over Eastern Illinois