Indiana Women’s Basketball Falls to Connecticut in Sweet 16
The three seed Indiana Women’s Basketball Team fell to second seed Connecticut 75-58 in the Bridgeport Regional Semifinal Saturday afternoon at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport Connecticut. This was the first ever meeting between the two programs and the Hoosiers showed early they were going to attack the Huskies from the start. The Hoosiers end the season at 24-9 after making The Big Ten Tournament Championship game for the first time 2002 and Back-to-Back Sweet 16 Appearances along with seven straight 20-win seasons. Connecticut will play top seed NC State tonight at 7pm for a spot in the Final Four in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NC State held off fifth seed Notre Dame 66-63 in the first semifinal.
Indiana held a lead for much of the first quarter and led by as many as five in the first quarter, on a reverse underneath the rim by Mackenzie Holmes. UConn dictated the rest of the quarter as it went on an 8-0 run to end the first with a 21-18 advantage. Ali Patberg started off the second with a 3-pointer, but UConn went up 6, 27-21. Patberg answered to cut it to three again, but the Huskies used another run to force Indiana into a timeout, going up by nine, 35-26. Four-straight points from Holmes led Indiana back within five but UConn’s Aalyiah Edwards capitalized off a second-chance opportunity. With just 1.6 to go before the break and the ball, Indiana’s inbound pass found Gulbe who took one dribble on the right baseline and drained the triple heading into the break. The Huskies (26-5) came out blazing in the third quarter, going on a 16-0 run before graduate student guard Nicole Cardaño-Hillary finally got IU on the board with 5:55 to go. Indiana would get no closer than 11 in the second half as it couldn’t overcome the third quarter deficit in the end.
The Hoosiers shot 49.7% from the field while the Huskies shot 46.3%. Saturday’s game marked the final game in the careers for Patberg, Cardaño-Hillary, Gulbe and Grace Waggoner. As a duo, Patberg and Gulbe completed their IU career with 90 wins and a 72% winning percentage.
Connecticut got 15 points a piece from Paige Bueckers and Christyn Williams. Freshman Azzi Fudd added 13 points, Olivia Nelson-Ododa added 10 points, and pulled down 14 rebounds and Aaliyah Edwards had 10 rebounds along with 9 points.
Parker Stewart and Rob Phinisee will not return to IUMBB next season
Parker Stewart and Rob Phinisee have announced they will not return the Indiana University Men’s Basketball Program for the 2022-23 season. They Join Khristian Lander and Michael Durr as the four players who have left the program this offseason and Indiana is now under the scholarship by one going into next season.
Stewart was one of two players to go through senior night for Indiana along with Race Thompson. The 6-foot-5 guard was a transfer from Tennessee-Martin midseason last year but did not see the floor until this year. He appeared in 34 games for Indiana, averaging 6.2 points per game while shooting 39.3 percent from three. On the season, Stewart made a team-high 53 3s for Indiana. He had six double-figure games for Indiana, including a season-high 20 points against Syracuse which included six 3s.
Stewart appeared in 91 games in his career playing for Pittsburgh, Tennessee-Martin and Indiana. He averaged 10;8 points per game and shot 37.3 percent from three in his career. He also started 75 games. He averaged a career-high 19.2 points per game in his one season at Tennessee-Martin. Stewart transferred to Indiana following the unexpected death of his father who was also his coach at Tennessee-Martin.
Phinisee will be a graduate transfer and be eligible immediately. The 6-foot-1 guard averaged 6.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in 111 career games over four seasons for the Hoosiers. Phinisee dealt with injuries throughout his career at Indiana, including his senior season. In 25 games, he averaged 4.5 points on 31.2% from the field and 1.7 assists per game in a reserve role.
The West Lafayette native had a career-high 20 points and a game-winner against No. 4 Purdue in Assembly Hall this season to end a nine-game losing streak to the Boilermakers. Phinisee scored in double-figures in three games this year and Indiana was 16-9 in games he appeared in. The four-year guard was the last remaining player on the Indiana roster from the first recruiting class from Archie Miller’s tenure.
Brian Walsh named IU Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach
Brian Walsh has been elevated to Assistant Coach for the Indiana University Men’s Basketball Program for the 2022-23. Walsh replaces Dane Fife who will not return after one season as assistant coach for Mike Woodson. Assistant coaches Kenya Hunter and Yasir Rosemond will assume new roles as associate head coaches.
Walsh will begin his sixth year with the program. He was Team and Recruiting Coordinator this past season after serving four years as the team’s Director of Basketball Operations.
Prior to IU, Walsh spent three years at the University of Dayton where he served as the Assistant Director of Basketball Operations for one year and a graduate assistant for two seasons. During his time at Dayton, the Flyers went 76-25, the most wins in a three-year span in program history. While at Dayton, the Flyers advanced to three-straight NCAA tournaments and claimed back-to-back regular-season Atlantic 10 championships in 2015-16 and 2016-17. In the summer of 2015, Walsh earned a master’s degree in educational leadership.
At Dayton, Walsh assisted with every aspect of the program, including underclassman recruiting, on campus recruiting, day-to-day administrative duties, academic services, housing, player services, community relations, and team meals. He served as the director of the program’s Team Camp and had responsibilities related to video, and summer camp operations.
Walsh graduated from the University of Akron in 2012, earning his bachelor’s degree in business administration and then a master’s in sports administration in 2013. While at Akron, he led the Zips and the MAC in three-point field goal percentage as a junior, hitting 44.2% from long distance in league play. Overall, he finished second in the conference shooting 43.4% from beyond the arc. A two-time academic All-MAC honoree, Walsh shot 40.9% from three-point range during his collegiate career. He averaged 8.3 ppg as a junior and 7.2 ppg as a senior captain, helping the Zips to 48 wins in two seasons and securing a regular-season and conference tournament championship in 2013 and a trip to the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
Before transferring to Akron, Walsh was a member of Xavier University’s basketball team from 2008-2010 where they advanced to back-to-back Sweet Sixteen’s. A native of Moon Township, Pa., Walsh averaged 19.7 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.5 assists as a senior at Moon High School and was named Gatorade Player of the Year in Pennsylvania in 2008.
15 Seed Saint Peter’s Knocks Off 3 Seed Purdue in Sweet 16
For the first time in NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament history a 15 seed has advanced to the Elite Eight. 15 seed Saint Peter’s from Jersey City, New Jersey knocked off Three Seed Purdue 67-64 in East Regional Semifinal in Philadelphia Friday Night. The Peacocks have taken down two seed Kentucky, seven seed Murray State and now add the last team in the Big Ten that was remaining in Purdue. Saint Peters is the first New Jersey School in Seton Hall in 2000 to make a Sweet 16. Saint Peter’s Head Coach Shaheen Holloway was player on that Seton Hall Team and could not play in the game that year due to an ankle injury suffered in the team’s second round game. Purdue’s last Final Four was 1980, and this marked the program’s fourth Sweet 16 in five years. It also marked another squandered opportunity. That came through in the reactions of Boilermakers players after the game.
To put the improbability of Saint Peter’s victory in historical context, consider that no team ranked Number 13 or Number 14 and just two Number. 12 seeds have advanced to the Elite Eight Missouri in 2002 and Oregon State last year. A 13-point underdog on Friday, Saint Peter’s also was an 18.5-point underdog against Kentucky in the first round, making the Peacocks the only team to win multiple games as a double-digit underdog in an NCAA tournament since it expanded in 1985. They were 8-point underdogs against Murray State in Round 2.
Saint Peter’s had three scorers in double figures, led by Daryl Banks 14 points. The Peacocks went 10 deep, with forward Clarence Rupert scoring both 11 points and absorbing post body blows from the 7-foot-4 Zach Edey and the 255-pound Trevion Williams. The late turning point came when the Peacocks switched to a 2-3 matchup zone with nearly four minutes remaining. They’d just run a crisp offensive set that resulted in Edert drawing a foul off a double screen and converting three free throws to pull Saint Peter’s within one. Purdue looked flummoxed by zone on the next possession but still managed a Williams free throw. From there, the Boilermakers’ offense unraveled. They ended up going without a field goal from the 5:18 mark to the 25-second mark, and even that came on a putback by Mason Gillis. Along the way, there was another near-perfect defensive possession that finished with a feeble 3-point attempt by Purdue star Jaden Ivey as the shot clock expired. Ivey finished just 4-for-12 for nine points, including 1-for-6 from 3-point range. Over that stretch, Purdue’s offense stagnated and Head Coach Shaheen Holloway’s adjustment allowed Saint Peter’s to race ahead. Saint Peter’s went 11-for-11 from the free throw line over the final 4:02 and 17-for-18 in the second half.
The magical run came to an end for Saint Peter’s on Sunday losing to eight seed North Carolina 69-49 in the elite eight. The Final Four is set Saturday in New Orleans with #2 seed Villanova talking on Top Seed Kansas followed by rivals North Carolina and #2 seed Duke.
The Big Ten Had Nine Teams in NCAA Tournament this year. Rutgers lost in the First Four. Indiana and Iowa lost in the First Round, Illinois, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin lost in the Second Round, and now Michigan and Purdue fall in the Sweet 16 – leaving no Big Teams left in the tournament.
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