Indiana women's basketball pulls off wild comeback win over Michigan State
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women's basketball edged Michigan State on Thursday night in a wild shootout.
The teams combined for 22 3-pointers while both shot better than 58% on the night.
No. 14 Indiana (19-3; 10-2 Big Ten) overcame a double-digit deficit in the 94-91 win to beat a Michigan State (17-6; 7-5) team that's lost on the road to Iowa, Ohio State and Indiana by a combined 13 points this season.
It was Indiana guard Sara Scalia's 3-pointer with 6:11 to go that gave her team it's first lead at 77-76 since early in the first quarter. It was during a stretch where the Hoosiers made eight straight field goal attempts as they looked out to close out the game.
The game was tied 86-86 with under 90 seconds to go when Mackenzie Holmes scored the go-ahead layup.
Holmes had a game-high 28 points and was one of four Hoosiers in double-digits. She's now 17 points away from surpassing Tyra Buss' as IU's all-time leading scorer (2,364 points). Chloe Moore-McNeil had a triple-double with 10 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists.
Indiana women's basketball makes a run in the third quarter
Mackenzie Holmes scored 10 points in the third to help IU erase a 11-point deficit. The Hoosiers made it a point in the quarter to get the ball to Holmes in the paint and let her go to work against an undersized Michigan State team.
The half court sets had the added benefit of slowing down the game's frantic pace.
Henna Sandvick and Yarden Garzon hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the final 70 seconds of the quarter to make it a tie game at 66-66. Sandvick’s only other 3-pointer this year came in the season-opener back on Nov. 9 against Eastern Illinois. She had gone 0 of 9 since then while playing limited minutes.
No brakes for Michigan State women’s basketball
Michigan State lived up to its reputation as one of the country’s most high-scoring offenses. The Spartans came into the game averaging 86.0 points (No. 6 in the country). They had 32 points in the first quarter going 14 of 20 from the field with four made 3-pointers and went into halftime with a 53-43 lead.
They had seven different players knock down at least one field goal in the half.
Michigan State’s 32 points in the first tied the record for most points given up in a single quarter in IU program history — the team had done it three times prior, most recently in 2017 — and it was the first time this season the Hoosiers gave up 30 or more points in a quarter.
The Spartans’ 53 points in the first half was the second most Indiana has given up in a single half. Stanford put up 54 points on the Hoosiers earlier this season. They scored on nearly 70% of their first half possessions (23 of 33).
Indiana shot 65% in the first half and had three players in double-digits, but still couldn’t keep pace.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana women's basketball stuns MSU with fourth quarter comeback
