Ali Patberg
BLOOMINGTON — On an afternoon in which her offense took a backseat to her teammates, Ali Patberg was at the forefront of Indiana University’s defensive scheme in Saturday’s first-round Women’s NCAA Tournament game against Charlotte.
Patberg, a graduate student from Columbus North, was asked to guard the 49ers’ Octavia Jett-Wilson, the Conference-USA Player of the Year. Although Jett-Wilson finished with a game-high 19 points, Patberg and her Hoosier teammates were able to slow down Charlotte enough to roll to an 85-51 victory.
“We knew that (Jett-Wilson) was going to be a handful going into this game,” Indiana coach Teri Moren said. “That was not lost on us. I thought — Ali had the nod of guarding her, but I think all of our guards at some point had the opportunity to because we were switching some ball screen action.”
Playing for the first time since falling to Iowa March 6 in the Big Ten Conference Tournament final — its fourth game in four days — the third-seeded Hoosiers (23-8) showed little signs of rust after the first few minutes on Saturday against the 14th-seeded C-USA champs. Indiana made only three of its first 10 shots, and the game was tied at 11 when the Hoosiers went on a 22-2 run to take complete control.
Indiana led 42-24 at halftime and the lead never got below 20 after the early stages of the third quarter.
“It gives us a lot of confidence,” Patberg said. “Obviously, all the games are important, but the first one is really important just because we hadn’t played in almost two weeks now. So to come out and play the way we did I think was great, and it gives us a ton of confidence, just how well we all played individually offensively, and I thought we executed our game plan pretty well. We have a lot of confidence going into the next one.”
Mackenzie Holmes, who continues to work her way back from a knee injury that caused her to miss several games late in the regular-season, led the Hoosiers with 19 points and eight rebounds. Grace Berger scored 18 points, Aleksa Gulbe had 15 and Nicole Cardano-Hillary added 11.
Patberg finished with seven points on 3-of-6 shooting, including 1-of-2 from 3-point range. She added two rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes of action as Moren rotated players in and out of the lineup to keep them fresh for Monday’s second-round contest against 11th-seeded Princeton, a 69-62 upset winner over third-seeded Kentucky in Saturday’s second game at Assembly Hall.
“I thought we moved the ball well,” Patberg said. “We shared the ball. What makes our team great is, we can score at all five positions. Scoring isn’t what it’s all about, so I just try to do whatever I can to help our team win. I think we all were aggressive.”
Indiana was playing an NCAA Tournament game on its home court for the first time.
“It was awesome,” Patberg said. “It was so cool just to see all the people that came out to support us. Hosting was a big goal for us this whole season just because we know how much of an advantage it is to play on your home court in front of your home fans.”
