Mackenzie Holmes ensures IU women's basketball avoids shock loss in her Maine homecoming

Mackenzie Holmes’ homecoming game against Maine could have turned out ugly.

The Hoosiers, who traveled to Portland, Maine, for a game against the Black Bears, trailed for nearly 25 minutes, and their America East Conference opponent led by as 10 points.

IU (6-1) managed to bounce back, though, slowly closing the gap to the Black Bears (4-4) before taking the lead late in the fourth quarter. The Hoosiers eventually scraped by, 67-59, to avoid spoiling Holmes' homecoming.

Mackenzie Holmes: A Bob Knight camp started her road to Indiana. Now, she gets her Maine homecoming.

Here are three observations:

Hoosiers struggle mightily

IU didn’t look like the No. 17 team in the country Thursday. It looked like a different team that beat ranked Tennessee and Princeton in Florida last week. It looked more like the team that lost by 30 points to Stanford earlier this season.

The Hoosiers started out sluggish on both fronts Thursday, heading into halftime with a 37-29 deficit. IU was giving up easy drives to the basket, and the Hoosiers couldn’t get their shots to fall in the first half, either — IU shot just 10-of-29 in the first half, while Maine made 15-of-29 attempts.

IU was also stagnant on the glass — the Black Bears outrebounded the Hoosiers, 22-18, in the first half despite IU’s sizable height advantage.

IU picked up the pace in the second half, slowly chipping away at Maine’s lead. The Hoosiers trailed for the entirety of the third quarter, and picked up the lead for the first time in over 25 minutes at the 4:38-mark of the fourth quarter.

"I feel like, gosh, we were bad, but were we that bad? I don't know," head coach Teri Moren said. "We missed shots, and I think we still have a ways to go defensively ... the first half was not what we were about, but we found a way to win."

The Hoosiers finished the game with a slight rebounding advantage, 36-35.

Senior guard Sydney Parrish was a large part of the comeback, scoring all of her 17 points in the second half.

"When we touched down here, (Holmes) kind of looked around and smiled, and you could tell it meant a lot to her," Parrish said. "We really wanted to win this game for her. It's obviously a team effort, and we want to win for each other and want to win for coach, but tonight was for Mackenzie."

Mackenzie Holmes excels in homecoming

Coach Teri Moren scheduled this game for fifth-year senior Mackenzie Holmes — who grew up just 30 minutes from the Portland arena in Gorham, Maine. On Thursday, she had over 1,000 people — family, friends, coaches, and teammates — pack the sold-out Cross Insurance Arena to watch her play in-person.

"This is a great environment for women's basketball," Holmes said. "Just to be able to come back here and play probably my las game ever in Cross Insurance Arena, it's just incredible."

On her homecoming, Holmes showed out. She nearly single-handedly kept the Hoosiers within single digits in the first half, leading the team with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

At 6-3, four inches taller than the tallest Maine player, she kept a strong presence in the post throughout the game, adding on two blocks. She finished the game with 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting, along with seven rebounds.

"Mackenzie Holmes is a proud Mainer," Moren said. "Today, I reminded her to relax, let the game come to her, and I also reminded her about how great she is, and what a great career she's had at Indiana."

Anne Simon turns heads

At one point in the second quarter, it was Anne Simon 21, Indiana 20.

The graduate student from Luxembourg showed her experience Thursday night, scoring seemingly from anywhere. The Maine guard racked up points at will throughout the first half, and IU could not seem to figure out how to stop her from midrange.

Simon got up to 21 points before IU in the second quarter, but the rest of her teammates combined for just six points.

Simon finished with 34 points — over half of the Black Bears’ total — on 12-of-24 shooting. Only five Maine players, including Simon, scored on Thursday.

"I think we could all agree that she was terrific," Moren said. "I think, at any point, any player, can sort of get in the zone. She saw the first couple go in, which gave her confidence and felt like nobody could guard her — which nobody wearing red could."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana women's basketball: Mackenzie Holmes wins Maine homecoming