After being denied a chance to compete in the postseason when last year’s NCAA Tournament was canceled, Ali Patberg is glad to be back with her Indiana teammates in this year’s tourney.
The 12th-ranked Hoosiers are in San Antonio, where they are preparing for Monday’s first round game against Virginia Commonwealth. Tip time is 2 p.m. EST.
“I’m super excited,” Patberg said on a Zoom press conference Saturday afternoon. “Last year was canceled. We’re just thankful and grateful that we’re here. We’ve worked two seasons now to be where we are. We’re ready to go.”
Patberg, the 2015 Miss Basketball from Columbus North, helped IU reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2019. That year, the 10th-seeded Hoosiers upset Texas in the first round before falling at Oregon and Sabrina Ionescu in the second round.
This year’s tournament has a much different setup. Much like the NCAA Men’s Tournament, which is being played entirely in Indiana, the women’s event is being contested in Texas, mostly in the San Antonio area.
“This is not a vacation,” IU coach Teri Moren said. “This is very much a business trip for the Hoosiers … We keep telling them, there are no do-overs. We don’t get to do this again. Unlike (against) Michigan State, when we played so poorly in the Big Ten Tournament, we had this to look forward to.”
The Hoosiers, who had finished second in the regular season with a program-record 16 Big Ten wins, lost to No. 7-seed Michigan State 69-61 in their Big Ten Tournament opener.
“Our goal going into the Big Ten Tournament was to win it, and we fell short,” Patberg said. “We didn’t come ready from the jump, so we got sent home. We wanted to be in the championship game, so that was really hard. We did get a couple days off, and that gave us a time to rest our bodies, but you also really think about how we went out there and didn’t execute. I think it just made us more hungry and ready to go for the NCAA Tournament.”
Indiana (18-5), which received a program-best No. 4 seed, will take a No. 13-seed VCU (16-10) team that won four games in four days, including a victory against top-seeded Dayton, to win last weekend’s Atlantic 10 Tournament.
With a win, the Hoosiers would face the winner between No. 5-seed Gonzaga and No. 12-seed Belmont. But the focus for now is squarely on VCU.
“The coaches have us tremendously prepared,” Patberg said. “We’ve watched a lot of film. They’re a great team. Every team that’s here has played well enough to get here. There’s only 64 teams. They have really good guard play, and they’re athletic. We’re just going to come out and execute our game plan, be solid defensively and execute offensively and do what we do, and the rest will take care of itself.”
Moren talked to her team about playing with desperation following the loss to Michigan State.
“When you play that way, your focus is heightened, your toughness, everything rises to the occasion when you play a little bit with desperation,” Moren said. “Our kids are anxious and eager to get back on the floor, and I love where their mindset has been the last couple of days. As hard as it’s been to be sort of confined to the hotel, the times that we’ve had to be in practice, I’ve loved where their focus was. We’re champing at the bit to get back on the floor.”
While this will be Patberg’s third NCAA Tournament — she reached the Elite Eight while at Notre Dame in 2017 — this will be the first NCAA tourney for many of her teammates, and they want to stay in Texas as long as possible.
“The other day, coach said it’s OK to play with desperation, knowing that we’re going to have to leave it all out there every game, or we’re not going to be here as long as we want to be here,” Patberg said. “Everyone is here on a mission. Everyone is going after the same goal. You can feel it when we practice on the floor. It’s all an experience. We’re here to win, but we’re also here to take it all in and enjoy every moment.”
