Indiana Women’s Basketball Concludes 2016-17 Season in WNIT Quarterfinal

Sunday, March 26

Bloomington, IN

2 P.M.

Indiana University

23-11

Villanova University

20-14

Villanova

Indiana

Indiana Women’s Basketball Concludes 2016-17 Season in WNIT Quarterfinal

3/26/2017 5:24:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Photo Gallery

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Hot shooting by Villanova in the first half was too much for Indiana Women's Basketball to overcome on Sunday afternoon, as it fell 69-57 in the WNIT quarterfinals in front of a season-high 4,770 fans inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. Indiana finishes the season 23-11 overall and the most wins in a single season in school history.

Junior guard Tyra Buss paced Indiana with 21 points to go along with eight rebounds, three assists and three steals. Senior guard Amber Deane added 12 points off the bench while junior guard Amanda Cahill chipped in 10 points and added five boards.

Senior guard Alexis Gassion closed out her IU career by grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds to go along with five points and four assist. On the day, Indiana shot just 38.1 percent from the floor and were not match for Villanova's 11 3-pointers on a 37.9 percent clip. Indiana went just 22.7 percent from beyond the arc to counter with five makes but won the advantage on the glass, 41-34.

It was a season of records set for Indiana, who posted the most wins (23) and points (2,547) in a single season. The Hoosiers senior class of Karlee McBride, Jenn Anderson and Alexis Gassion also wrap up their careers as the all-time winningest class with 80 victories in four seasons. Gassion also finishes her career in an Indiana uniform at No. 13 on the all-time scoring list (1,343), No. 9 all-time in rebounds (749) and No. 6 in assists (370).

The Wildcats (20-14) came out and made a statement, hitting seven 3-pointers in the opening frame but Indiana was able to keep up with 11 points from Buss to trail 25-21. In the second, IU mustered up just nine points and shot 20 percent in the frame as it faced lengthy scoring droughts, allowing Villanova to pour on three more triples and take a 41-30 lead at halftime.

Both offenses struggled in the third, with a combined 16 points scored between the two teams. Indiana trailed 47-40 going into the fourth when IU came to life. They would cut the lead down to as a few as four on a conventional 3-point play from Cahill. Villanova stretched its lead back out to nine with 4:47 to play as Deane responded with a triple from the corner. A Buss jumper made it a four-point game once again, but a 7-0 run from the Wildcats helped seal its trip to the semifinal round.

QUOTABLE
Head coach Teri Moren

"What a fantastic crowd that showed up today. You never want one game to define your season, but for the crowd to show up the way that they have in the last two weeks with the WNIT has been really special for us. I just want to make that our fans know that we heard them, they showed up in a big way, and we are sorry that we couldn't allow this run to go another few weeks, but really grateful for the support. This was a really good team, we talked about it the past few days about the press and that this team was going to challenge us in every way defensively. We didn't anticipate them catching fire like that in the first half, but we knew that they could shoot it. Our switches weren't as nearly as aggressive as we needed to be. There were moments that our defense was pretty solid and they managed to get shots off and score. What I felt in the halftime was that they needed to cool off at some point and that's what happened in the second half, we just didn't score enough points. I look at the box score and Cahill goes 4 for 12, McBride is 0 for 7, Gassion is 2 for 9, us scoring 50 points is a problem because we are used to scoring 70 points and we just didn't put up enough points on the board in the second half this afternoon to win the game."

NOTABLE

The Hoosiers finish the season with an overall record of 23-11. The 23 wins are a program record for most wins in a season.
Indiana went 15-3 at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall this season, a program record for most home wins in a season.
The four-year senior class of Jenn Anderson, Karlee McBride and Alexis Gassion set a program record for any four-year class with 80 wins.
With 2,547 points this season, the Hoosiers set a program record for most points scored in a single season. The previous best of 2,492 was set in the 1980-81 season.
Tyra Buss led the Hoosiers with 21 points and became the first player in program history to score 600 points in back-to-back seasons. Buss finished the 2016-17 season with 619 points to go with her 620 points from last year.
Buss finishes the season with 1,601 career points, which ranks eighth in school history on the Hoosiers all-time list for career scoring. The 1,601 points sets a program record for most points through three seasons at IU. The Hoosiers all-time scoring leader is Denise Jackson, who played from 1980-94 and totaled 1,917 points.
Indiana held a 36-18 advantage in points in the paint and outrebounded Villanova 41-34.
The Hoosiers had 15 bench points against Villanova and got double-digits points from their reserve players in the last three games.
Buss moved into third on the Hoosiers all-time list for career assists and now has 400.
Amanda Cahill scored 10 points and added five points and three assists for the Hoosiers. Cahill finished the season with 1,321 points, which ranks 14^th on the Hoosiers all-time scoring list.
Alexis Gassion scored five points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Gassion finishes her career 13^th on the Hoosiers all-time scoring list with 1,343 points.
Amber Deane scored a season-high 12 points off the bench in 20 minutes.
Trailing by as many as 12 points, the Hoosiers cut that deficit to four points three times in the fourth quarter, the last at 56-52 with 2:56 to go in the game.