Indiana women's historic season comes to shocking end as Miami knocks out No. 1 Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON — It wasn't supposed to end like this, not here, at least.

This was the best season in IU women's basketball history: 27 wins, a Big Ten regular-season championship and the first No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in program history. It was a remarkable, program-defining run and it was supposed to end in Dallas or Greenville, not Bloomington.

But this is March, a time when the season is infinitely more fragile and everyone is conditioned to expect the unexpected.

So when freshman Yarden Garzon drilled a step-back, game-tying 3-pointer from the top of the arc with six seconds remaining, it felt like — against all odds — IU was going to withstand Miami's best shot and escape to the Sweet 16 for a third consecutive season, be it on a buzzer-beater or in overtime.

Turns out, Garzon's dramatic shot was merely the scene-setter. "That shot, it doesn't matter," Garzon said.

A tearful goodbye from Grace Berger:'I loved being a Hoosier, every single second of it.'

Coming out of a timeout, Miami threw the ball to Destiny Harden in the lane. The forward stepped to her left, then pulled back and swung back to her right, jumping straight up from the middle of the lane. Harden lofted a shot over the outstretched arm of Indiana guard Grace Berger. The orange sphere rolled across the rim, bounced gently off the back of the basket and fell through.

Chloe Moore-McNeil lost control of the ball on the other end, the buzzer sounded and the celebration was on for Miami. Final score: 70-68.

It was a stunning, heartbreaking loss, the pain of which will be felt over the days and weeks to come. But Moren was quick to offer perspective with her opening statement.

"When the dust settles, we're going to look back at all the memories that we made this season. It was so special," Moren said. "It hurts now, but this team will go down in history as one of the very best."

Here are three things to know from Monday’s season-ending loss.

It took IU too long to find its 'comfort level'

It was a very bad, no good, pretty horrible start for Indiana, which missed 15 of its first 21 shots from the field. It endured stretches of three and five straight misses, and did not make consecutive shots until the final five minutes of the half.

While the Hoosiers struggled, the Hurricanes seemingly couldn't miss, converting 12 of their first 19 from the field to build a 28-14 lead with 7:40 left in the second quarter.

Miami was, as advertised, very good at rebounding and wickedly athletic — its ability to score in transition tilted the game early — but perhaps the most impactful trend was the visitor's willingness to attack inside, force-feeding the ball to 6-4 senior Lola Pendande in the post and allowing her to hammer away inside against IU's bigs.

Pendande accounted for eight of Miami's first 11 points, and finished the game with 19 points and seven rebounds.

"They got up in us and made us uncomfortable," Moren said. "We didn't have any good rhythm, pace, flow to what we were trying to do offensively. They came out and stuck shots, and when you're sticking shots like that, it gives you a lot of confidence. … It took us a while to get into a comfort level."

IU finally broke through late in the second quarter with a 7-1 run comprised of a Grace Berger jumper and five straight points from Chloe Moore-McNeil, including a 3-pointer that cut the margin to five with two minutes left in the half.

But as it did throughout the first two quarters, Miami had an answer. Jasmyne Roberts negated Moore-McNeil's 3-pointer with one of her own, kicking off a 10-2 run that left the halftime score at 41-29.

IU missed four straight shots during that stretch, with Berger hitting the lone basket.

"We were pissed off (during halftime), but obviously still motivated," IU junior Sydney Parrish said. "We'd been down before, so we knew how to come back — and we did. We made some fixes, but just fell a little short."

Holmes returned to the lineup, but needed more help

Holmes, as predicted, needed the first half to find her legs, and was largely a non-factor through the first 20 minutes, tallying just four points on 2-of-9 shooting with four rebounds and a block. The problem was, no one really picked up the slack with IU shooting 34% over the first two quarters, and the defense was uncharacteristically wobbly, allowing Miami to shoot 57% with nine 3-pointers on 15 tries.

Holmes made her presence known after the break, ripping off 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting with four rebounds and an assist in the third quarter. She reeled off four straight points to cut the margin to two with just under 90 seconds left, then followed a Parrish layup with one of her own about a minute later to make it a one-point game entering the fourth.

"Mack was so much better in the second half. I think we can all agree with that," Moren said of Holmes, who played 18 minutes in the second half. "It's been about 12 days since Mack has played any competitive basketball, and we knew she would take a minute to sort of get her legs underneath her."

Holmes, who finished with 22 points (18 in the second half) and nine rebounds, tied the game twice with layups in the fourth quarter. The first came at the 3:52 mark (58-58), the second came with 3:05 remaining.

Both baskets were negated on the other end by Miami.

"We had some slippage there on the defensive side of the ball, going under (Haley Cavinder), and just some other things that are uncharacteristic of our team," Moren lamented. "It's unfortunate on a night where we needed to be so good and flawless almost defensively, we had a lot of hiccups throughout the 40 minutes."

Missed opportunities doom the Hoosiers

Yeah, these ones really stung. Here are a few that stood out…

>> IU finally got things going in the right direction at the start of the third quarter. Five straight points by Berger cut the margin to seven. When Roberts stalled the early momentum with a bucket of her own, Parrish drew a charge and Holmes followed with three straight buckets to make it a three-point game.

But then the offense stalled out. Five missed shots, two turnovers over its next seven possessions. That spoiled a lights-out stretch defensively, wherein IU held Miami without a field goal over a seven-minute stretch and without a point for six minutes.

>> IU continued getting stops into the fourth quarter, but sent Miami to the line seven times over the first four minutes, which allowed the Canes to claim a six-point lead with 6:18 remaining following a 3-point play by Lashae Dwyer.

>> The Hoosiers missed a couple free throws in critical junctions. Garzon had a chance to make it a two-point game after IU forced a shot clock violation with 5:20 left, but she was only able to convert one of her two opportunities.

Holmes had a chance to give IU its first lead of the night, but was unable to complete the 3-point play. Miami responded with a Pedande 2 and a Hanna Cavinder 3-pointer.

>> Garzon tied the score at 65 with 49 seconds left. Harden was only able to convert 1 of 2 FTs, which left the door open for IU to grab the lead. But Moore-McNeil's layup through traffic would not fall, and IU was forced to foul down a point with 22 seconds remaining.

Harden missed two free throws the next trip down, but Berger missed a jumper she makes 99-out-of-100 times, leaving the margin at one with 13 seconds left. "Sometimes they just don't go in," Berger said. "The ball just wasn't rolling our way tonight."

"We got the shots we wanted," Moren added. "We'll take that shot from Grace Berger and I'll take the layup from Chloe that she missed, as well. They just didn't go down for us tonight. We could have easily climbed ahead, but it didn't happen. We have to learn from it — and we will. We'll be better because of this experience as we always are. It'll take a couple days, but we'll move on."

IU stats

Holmes finished with 22 points, while Berger tallied 17 with six rebounds and six assists. Garzon rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points and two assists, with Moore-McNeil adding nine points and four assists.

IU shot 41% from the field and was out-rebounded 35-29.

Garzon hit three 3-pointers to break the single-season record for 3-pointers by a freshman.

"She's a freshman and she's making big plays in the NCAA Tournament. That's not normal," Parrish said. "Knowing that I have a couple more years with Yarden is pretty nice. She's a really special player and I'm glad the world got to see her performance."

Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU women's basketball upset by Miami in NCAA tournament 2nd round