The Indiana Hoosiers received bad news before the game tipped off as star guard Shay Ciezki was a surprise scratch from Thursday night’s game at USC. The Hoosiers did not back down without Ciezki as they opened up a 24-13 lead after the first quarter and took a 37-35 lead into half time. The Trojans outscored IU 44-36 in the second half to complete the 79-72 victory.
“I don’t have any details on that.” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said of the severity of Ciezki’s injury. “She tried everything to be able to go tonight. I’m hopeful that maybe another day or two she’ll be available on Sunday, but we’ll see.
Ciezki rolled her ankle in shoot around earlier on Thursday. Moren said ” it’s just one oft hose freak things. Nobody was around her. We were just repping some of our stuff uh that we were planning on using tonight and she just rolled it and was was not available. So disappointing because I think, again give our kids a lot of credit, but she she being in the game would have probably helped some.”
Without their best player in Ciezki other Hoosiers had to step up and they did. IU was led by freshman forward Mya Makalusky who poured in a career-high 29 points to go along with six rebounds while playing all 40 minutes.
Three other Hoosiers scored in double figures as well. Lenée Beaumont scored 10, Edessa Noyan added 12 while Navaeh Caffey contributed 11.
The Hoosiers had won three in a row coming into this game and were digging out of a 0-10 start to Big Ten play. While the season has not gone the way anyone wants, Moren has seen the improvements they have made along the way.
“I’m most proud is thatthis group has stuck together.” Moren said after the game. They’ve continued to come in every day and practice and have tried to get better. They’ve tried to do u trust me. They haven’t been perfect, but they’ve tried to do some of the things we’ve asked them to do. I you know we’ve seen some of that pay off. And so this is the this is why tonight kind of stings because we did have the last three games where we were playing pretty good basketball.”
The Hoosiers will try and regroup when the take on the No. 2 UCLA Bruins on Sunday.
Video Highlights
Other Game Notes (From IU)
- Makalusky finished with a new career-high 29 points while hitting five 3-pointers and grabbing six rebounds.
- She was joined in double figures by three other players including 12 points from Noyan.
- Fr guard Nevaeh Caffey (11 points) and redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont (10 points) all finished the night in double figures.
- Senior guard Jerni Kiaku made her first start for Indiana on Thursday night. Kiaku had an IU career-high nine points.
- The Hoosiers had a season-high 19 assists on 25 made shots including a career-high six assists from Noyan.
- Noyan also had a team-high eight rebounds, three blocks and two steals.