No. 23 Indiana Women’s Basketball Opens Season With 71-37 Win Over Presbyterian

Friday, November 11

Bloomington, Ind.

7 pm

Indiana University

1-0

Presbyterian

0-1

Team	1	2	3	4	F
Presbyterian College	9	12	11	5	37
Indiana	19	19	15	18	71

No. 23 Indiana Women’s Basketball Opens Season With 71-37 Win Over Presbyterian

11/11/2016 10:09:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Photo Gallery

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Juniors Amanda Cahill and Tyra Buss both scored in double digits as No. 23 Indiana opened the 2016-17 season with a 71-37 win over Presbyterian College on Friday night.

Cahill posted her 18th career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds and shooting 54 percent from the field (6-for-11) inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. Buss led all scorers with 15 points and helped her team to a fourth-straight season opening win. She would finish the evening three points shy of her 1,000^th career point.

Backed by Cahill on the glass, IU outrebounded the Blue Hose, 40-18, on the night. Sophomore forward Kym Royster finished just shy of a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds as the duo combined to lead the Hoosiers' dominate effort in the paint. Combined, Indiana scored 50 of its 71 points on its inside game and 24 of those points on second chance shots.

As a team, IU shot 53.6 percent from the field and included a dominate fourth quarter where it went 64.3 percent to close out the game.

Freshman Ria Gulley the start in her first collegiate game and chipped in six points as she became the first freshman to start a season opener since Buss and Cahill both did it in 2014-15. In all, 11 players scored points in the win and

Presbyterian came out ready for the preseason ranked Hoosiers, as it took two leads early in the first quarter. Gulley's first career points on 3-pointer helped Indiana stretch its lead out to five with 4:11 to play in the first quarter and ended the opening frame on a 13-2 to run to lead 19-9.

IU's defense stifled the Blue Hose (0-1) as it forced a shot clock violation to begin the second quarter. It was just one of 19 turnovers forced by Indiana, as they also capitalized by picking up 11 steals led by Buss' three.

Indiana closed the final 4:43 of the half with a 13-3 run and held Presbyterian to one field goal the final 4:53 of the second quarter to lead 38-21 at the break. Cahill officially put herself in double figures late into the third with an offensive board and putback with 1:36 to play. Senior forward Jenn Anderson helped IU see its largest lead of the game at that point as she made it a 53-32 game to close the third quarter.

The fourth quarter was the most dominate for IU, as it outscored Presbyterian 18-5 overall in the final ten minutes and seal win number one of the season.

QUOTEABLES
Head Coach Teri Moren
"I thought we grew tonight since our last game versus UIndy. We went back and watched a lot of film. There was a lot of things we wanted to improve in this game, and defensively we seemed more sound tonight. Our communication has to improve and has to get better. That's a difficult team (Presbyterian) because of their movement, to guard if you aren't connected, if you aren't sound. For the most part, we seemed pretty connected especially in the first half. I really liked our intensity in how we went to our bench or our starters were in, it just seemed like we played with more purpose tonight and intent. We grew in the right direction. We still have a long way to go but I thought we did get to see really good things."

Players
On shutting down perimeter shooters…
Junior Forward Amanda Cahill
"I think there were times where we had a couple lapses and we were a little bit off or low on our gaps but I think for the most part we did a good job. We knew coming in that they're really strong from the 3-point line, so we tried to amp up or defense and ball pressure so we could take that away.

On the challenges faced tonight…
Sophomore Forward Kym Royster
"It helped that we had a couple days to prepare so we were really ready through our practices, we got some experience and we got watch some film. I think just coming into the game we knew what to expect, so we were ready.

NOTABLES
• The Hoosiers won their season opener for the fourth-straight year and are now 33-13 all-time on opening night.
• Indiana has won 15 straight games in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall dating back to last year when they went a perfect 14-0 at home.
• Indiana held Presbyterian to single digits in scoring in two quarters. Presbyterian scored nine points in the first quarter and five points in the fourth quarter.
• The Hoosiers shot 9-of-14 (64.3 percent) from the field in the fourth quarter and 30-of-56 (53.6 percent) from the field for the game. Indiana held Presbyterian to 16-of-45 (35.6 percent) from the field for the game.
• Junior Tyra Buss led the Hoosiers with 15 points and scored in double-figures for her 38th straight game, dating back to Feb. 26, 2015 in her freshman season against Maryland.
• Buss now has 997 career points and can become the fastest player (and 24^th in program history) to reach the 1,000 career point mark on Sunday versus Vanderbilt.
• Junior Amanda Cahill scored 12 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for her 18th career double-double. Cahill has scored in double-figures in 26 of her last 27 games, dating back to last season.
• Senior Amber Deane (four points), redshirt sophomore Tia Elbert (two points) freshmen Darby Foresman (four points) and Bre Wickware (two points) all made their Hoosier debuts tonight.

UP NEXT
Indiana returns to the hardwood on Sunday afternoon when it welcomes Vanderbilt to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. ET and will be live on BTN Plus.

Follow #IUWBB
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram