Key Takeaways: Indiana women’s basketball takes down Oklahoma, advances to third Sweet Sixteen in four years to face No. 1 South Carolina

The Indiana women’s basketball program is advancing to its third Sweet Sixteen in the last four years with a 75-68 win over 5-seed Oklahoma on Monday night.

In a spot where it was stunned last season on its homecourt, Indiana came into Monday night with a ‘chip on our shoulder’ mentality. Not only was it a gritty win for the Hoosiers, it was a signature moment to put some of that memory out of sight and mind.

Indiana now faces No. 1 overall seed South Carolina on Friday night at 5:00 pm ET on ESPN.

There were some major storylines and takeaways from Indiana’s win. So, let’s break them down.

Mackenzie Holmes is dominant in her final game inside Assembly Hall. This shouldn’t be a surprise but she was absolutely tremendous and was the stabilizing force Indiana women’s basketball needed when things became rocky. She had 29 points on 12-of-23 from the field and 5-of-7 from the free throw line. But, she had 20 points in the second half and 12 points on 5-of-6 from the field in the fourth quarter alone. Holmes took over late, however. Indiana was down 59-58 at the 3:43 mark when Holmes scored eight straight points for the Hoosiers to give IU a 66-64 lead with 1:17 remaining. It was a phenomenal performance by a three-time All-American in a must-win game. The greatest Hoosier did it again.

Transition needs to be a point of emphasis — no matter what. Coming into Monday’s matchup, Indiana head coach Teri Moren said that she wanted Indiana to play its game — an up-tempo pace — but didn’t want to make it a “track meet”. The Sooners were one of the faster-tempo teams in the country and Moren knew this one would be a game that would test that. But, Indiana almost tried to slow the game down too much. On the night, Oklahoma outscored Indiana 15-2 in transition and was a critical stat all night long. Indiana shot just 32.4 percent in the first half and struggled greatly to get any sort of rhythm offensively in a half court setting. The Hoosiers are best pushing the pace because they do have so many athletes and shooters on the floor. That needs to remain moving forward.

Chloe Moore-McNeil is such a calming presence for Indiana. The Indiana point guard is such an underrated member of this roster and continues to be the main calming influence and presence. She finished with nine points, nine rebounds, five assists and just one turnover in 38 minutes. This was the sixth time in the last eight games that she had one or less turnovers. Through the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, she has 11 assists and just two turnovers.

“When you have somebody like Chloe out there that’s your point guard that doesn’t get rattled, right, that’s really important,” Indiana women’s head basketball coach Teri Moren said after the win. “Because ultimately she’s the one that is getting us into our sets and running offense and understanding pace and rhythm and what’s working, what’s not working. So I thought Chloe’s play tonight was so critical to the game and winning the game.”

Sydney Parrish breaks out. Indiana needs a big performance from one of its role players and got exactly that with Parrish. She finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists in 35 minutes and really set the tone for Indiana. She had 12 points in the first half utilizing her versatility and athleticism on both ends of the floor. She was efficient, going 5-of-9 from the floor, hitting two 3s and then 5-of-6 from the foul line. Parrish was able to get hot early from three which opened up her ability to utilize her size and strength and get into the paint. Her 17 points were the most since Jan. 10.

Two starters struggle but come alive at the perfect time. While three starters were very effective, Sara Scalia and Yarden Garzon struggled the entire game and were non-existent on the offensive end of the floor. Not only did it create a lot of tough looks for everyone else, it allowed the defense to shade more on Mackenzie Holmes for the majority of the night. Through the first three quarters, that duo was just 1-of-13 from the floor with three points. Indiana was not going to win unless one or both players stepped up. They both did. They combined for 13 points on 3-of-4 shooting. Scalia hit 7-of-8 free throws to help ice the game and Garzon had the biggest bucket of the game with 39 seconds left to put the Hoosiers up four.

“I’ve said it and I’ll continue to say it, she is not afraid of the moment. She’s just not,” Moren said of Garzon. “She’s hit some big shots for us in close games. This is not her first one. She is — she’s Uber confident in her play, in herself as a basketball player. But I think the closer — I don’t like ’em, the tighter the game is, the better she likes it. Because she loves the competition piece. But she is not afraid of the moment. That was a big one for us. But it takes a lot of courage to take that shot on a night, as you mentioned, where her shots weren’t going in as easy. But we were not surprised when she took it and she stuck it in that moment.”

Gutsy. Gritty. Tough. There is no other way to put it — it was just a grind-it-out win in a must-win environment. Indiana led for just 7:27 of the game but were able to put together enough plays to come away with a win. Most notably was its 10-0 run from the 2:41 mark until just 25 seconds left. Down 64-60, Indiana held Oklahoma without a made field goal for 2:28 of game time, before it was too little, too late for the Sooners.

“I know how it felt last year, we all know how it felt last year, and I was going to do everything in my power to not let that happen again,” Holmes said. “I just have a really great team full of people who believe in me, even when I don’t believe in myself and I think that’s the difference maker.”

Holmes scored six straight once it was 64-60, sparking the Indiana run.

“I think it’s just the maturity of our team,” Holmes added. “Knowing that no deficit that we got ourselves into is going to be too much. Just getting stop after stop and really just controlling the pace of that game. Oklahoma is a great team, they like to play fast and they did that tonight and I think it caused some issues for us sometimes but once we took control of the pace of the game we got the looks we wanted, got the shots we wanted, I think that’s when the momentum started to shift.”

“There’s a fight in that group too. That they were not going to go away quietly,” Moren said. “Like I said, in that timeout I knew that they understood, like that was their run, now let’s run it back and we got to have our own run. With great confidence.”

SEE ALSO: ‘We knew it was going to be hard’: Indiana Women’s Basketball wins ugly and advances to their third Sweet Sixteen in last four years

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated, part of the Full Ride Network, on Twitter @Indiana_FRN, Facebook and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. You can also listen to the Talking’ Bout the Hoosiers podcast on Spotify.

Looking for a place to get more Indiana content? Hoosier Illustrated has partnered with Tom Brady’s company ‘Autograph’ to streamline our coverage, so you can continue to do what you do best – follow IU sports. Use the CODE: Indianafr to get started today. For more info, you can start here.