Indiana women’s basketball gets notable non-conference win behind Yarden Garzon’s career-night

It was another notable non-conference matchup for the Indiana women’s basketball program on Thursday — and just like it had done 13 times over the last two seasons, IU came away with a big win in a ranked matchup with Tennessee.

The Hoosiers took down the Vols, 71-57, to advance to the Ft. Meyers Tip-off Championship, all thanks to a career-night from sophomore Yarden Garzon.

Garzon finished with 23 points.

“The win was the best birthday gift I could give to myself,” Garzon said after the win. “It was a team effort. I’m proud of my team for coming today to win this game and we left everything on the court.”

Garzon hit five 3s — also tying a career high. She had just two games of 20+ points before Thursday.

“I know if I pass the ball to Yarden beyond the arc, it has a good chance to go in and that just comes from confidence,” Indiana women’s basketball senior All-American forward Mackenzie Holmes said. “I’ve seen her work ethic and I’ve seen her develop as a player and I know how capable she is.”

Thursday was exactly what Indiana needed — and also what Garzon needed. She was shooting 27.3 percent from three in the last three games and was averaging just 8.3 points per game.

“Yarden’s been disappointed,” Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren said. “We believe in her, we have confidence in her, we see those same shots go down in practice. So anytime she hits them, the only people that aren’t surprised are probably us. But it was great for her because she needed a game like this.”

Despite Garzon’s big output, it was a slow start for Indiana offensively. The Hoosiers were just 2-of-7 from three and scored 12 points in the first quarter.

Indiana would hit its stride entering halftime, however, never looking back. It hit eight of its 10 made 3s in the next three quarters en route to shooting a season-best 45.5 percent from three.

“The first half, I didn’t think, was clean offensive other than Yarden got going from beyond the arc but I thought we were much better in the second half with the some of our offense, moving better,” Moren said.

While the offense clicked, the defense did even more. Tennessee entered averaging 92 points per game and top-10 in the nation in total offense.

Tennessee scored just 54 points and was held to just 35.9 percent from the field and 6-of-20 from three

This type of performance is exactly the response Moren was looking for after it’s ‘old-fashioned butt-kicking’ against Stanford almost two weeks ago.

“After that Stanford loss, we weren’t just angry and frustrated and disappointed. We were a little bit embarrassed,” Moren said. “We knew that that’s not our team. That’s not what we’re capable of …They wanted to show up and prove to themselves more than anything that they were better than what we showed in our performance in Stanford.

“This is a good win for us on the road in a great environment and against a really good basketball team. We are thankful and grateful that we were able to put it together tonight.”

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