IU silences 'great college basketball crowd' at Mackey Arena with 3-point barrage
WEST LAFAYETTE – The crowd was loud and the No. 16 IU women’s basketball team wasn’t missing from 3-point range. After a while, as the 3s kept floating toward the rim and going in, the full house at Mackey Arena was making what sounded like an enormous groan.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Over and over the crowd was groaning, because over and over the Hoosiers were making 3-pointers, and they needed almost all of them to hold off Purdue 74-68 Sunday afternoon at Mackey Arena.
Even when the crowd was silly, IU was making 3-pointers. They were chanting “block that kick,” and the kid in the cow costume was acting the part, however cows are supposed to act, and the Hoosiers kept making 3-pointers. Sara Scalia was driving the baseline and spotting Yarden Garzon in the opposite corner and whipping a pass that way. Garzon was making the 3-pointer, because that’s how it went Sunday. Chloe Moore-McNeil hit the biggest shot of the game, a step-back 3-pointer with so little time on the shot clock, officials had to check the replay to make sure she’d beaten the shot clock.
Sure enough.
Scalia made six shots from 3-point range, Garzon five, Moore-McNeil three and even Mackenzie Holmes, who had made exactly zero 3-pointers this season, made one. The Hoosiers were 15-for-23 on 3-pointers (65.2%), and that’s what it took to win another game, the latest game that elevated the sport in our state.
“Great college basketball crowd,” IU coach Teri Moren was saying afterward, after her team had met on the court for a postgame celebration and then turned outward, toward the crowd, to thank IU fans and even, I like to think, the Purdue fans for filling the building. This is how it goes when these teams play, the last three games being standing room only – both games last season, and now this one – and it will happen again when Purdue visits IU on Feb. 11.
Hoosiers hold them off: Chloe Moore-McNeil, Sara Scalia step up, lead IU past Purdue
The sport is growing by the hour, which means sometimes things can get out of control. No, nothing happened Sunday at Mackey Arena. The place was all class – not even an “IU sucks” chant – but an event four hours to the east was a topic here.
Purdue's Rashunda Jones is a rising star
Just so you know, Purdue was making 3-pointers, too. OK, the Boilermakers didn’t go 15-for-23, but they did produce the individual highlight of the day:
Final seconds of the third quarter, score tied at 51, Purdue in transition. Abbey Ellis crosses midcourt with about 5 seconds left and hesitates near the Purdue bench. Boilermakers coach Katie Gearlds is looking at the clock and at Ellis and pointing toward the basket, as in: Go that way.
Ellis throws it the other way, to freshman Rashunda Jones of South Bend Washington, standing near the Keady Court logo. With Gearlds and the rest of the arena watching in disbelief – What the…? – Jones gathers the ball on Gene Keady’s signature, roughly 30 feet from the basket, and launches a shot so pure, it barely moved the net.
Jones was so excited, she spun on the ball of one foot and went around 1½ times.
The Boilers aren’t having the kind of season they enjoyed last year, Gearlds’ second, when they reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017, but it was to be expected. Purdue lost leading scorer Lasha Petree and their most indispensable player and leader, Cassidy Hardin. This season is something of a reset, with the highest-scoring freshman class in the Big Ten led by Jones (9.8 ppg) and Mary Ashley Stevenson (9.3 ppg), but the Boilers were ready Sunday.
Put it like this: Purdue made nine of its first 10 shots, and grabbed the offensive rebound on the only miss – which led to a 3-pointer by Madison Layden. Purdue led 29-22 after one quarter when Jones (13 points) hit another last-second shot, this one a drive where she split two defenders on the perimeter because she’s a blur, then attacked Holmes and scored around her at the rim.
Fearless, you call a player like this. Fiery, too. She was pumping fists after several baskets, getting more noise from one of the biggest crowds we've ever seen at Purdue. College basketball is growing, as I said, here and elsewhere. And something happened elsewhere Sunday that needs to be addressed here.
News of Caitlin Clark incident reaches Mackey
Don’t kid yourself. We have a vested interest in what happened at Ohio State, and what it portends for the future. What happened at Ohio State? A crowd stormed the court after a women’s basketball game.
Ever heard of that? Me neither, but it happened Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, after the Buckeyes beat No. 2 Iowa – and one of the OSU fans collided at nearly full speed with Iowa All-American Caitlin Clark as she was hustling toward the locker room. Court-storming is a hot topic at Purdue, where the men’s basketball team has been the recipient of such treatment in nine of its last 10 Big Ten road losses. Coach Matt Painter made another plea for help after it happened two weeks ago at Nebraska.
IU’s Moren, a Purdue grad who still follows things here closely – she hugged every member of the Purdue staff before the game, then fist-pounded Purdue’s sports voice, Tim Newton – and she was citing Painter after this one.
“I think your guy here Matt P has talked about that,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a place for it. These kids are going to have to be protected. Anytime that can potentially happen, it’s up to the institution to make sure there’s a plan in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Our interest in what happened at Ohio State is Caitlin Clark, the only choice with the No. 1 pick if she decides not to return to Iowa next year for her NCAA-allowed fifth season (the so-called Covid year). The Indiana Fever have the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. My point? We need Caitlin Clark to be kept safe, because she could elevate not just our WNBA franchise, but our entire Downtown.
Just watch.
As for Sunday, Purdue’s Gearlds wonders what would’ve happened had this outcome been different.
“If we won this game, I think our court would’ve been stormed,” she said.
It was not to be, none of it, not with IU hitting all those 3-pointers and Holmes establishing her primacy in the second half, when she scored 11 of her 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting.
“She’s the best post player in the country,” Gearlds said of Holmes, then let out a big sigh. We’re talking near the tunnel that leads from the locker rooms to the court, and she keeps looking out there, at what might have been if Holmes hadn’t been so good, and Scalia and Moore-McNeil hadn’t score 20 apiece, and Garzon hadn’t scored 17.
“Women can hoop,” she’s said a few minutes earlier. “You tell people: ‘Just come out and watch. You’re going to fall in love with how hard these kids play and how good they are, and you’re going to want to come back.’”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU women's basketball beats Purdue, but thoughts with Caitlin Clark