JONESBORO, Ark. ? Victories come on the road by playing solid defense and winning the battle of the boards. Indiana State did just that in Friday evening's college basketball contest at Arkansas State, earning a hard-fought 63-49 victory in front of 1,696 fans at the ASU Convocation Center.
The Sycamores improved to 6-4 on the season while the Indians fell to 6-6.
The 49 points scored by Arkansas State proved to be the fewest allowed by the Sycamores so far this season. The previous best was the 55 points allowed in the season opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. In addition, Indiana State out-rebounded Arkansas State by a 44-40 margin. The Sycamores improved to a perfect 5-0 on the season when holding teams to 73 points or less.
“Defensively, this is exactly what we are looking for,” head coach Jim Wiedie said after the game. “We showed a lot of heart and stuck to our game plan while jumping on Arkansas State right out of the gate. For the most part we were able to keep up the defensive intensity for the entire game, and played hard with a lead.”
Indiana State raced out of the gates hot after the defense got things in gear with a slim 10-6 advantage with 14:32 left in the first half. After that Arkansas State bucket, they would not hit another field goal until the 8:34 mark before the break, scoring just four points over that nearly six minute span for a 24-11 lead on a break-away lay-up by Annie Bankhead.
The Sycamores leading scorer, Angela Phillips, did not score in the first half, but recorded each of Indiana State's first seven assists. She finished the game with a career-high tying nine dishes.
Indiana State led by a 35-19 margin at the break, and got right on Arkansas State out of the locker room by scoring each of the second stanza's first six points for a 41-19 lead.
The lead would climax at 52-27 with 13:52 left in the game. Arkansas State was able to trim the advantage down to 60-47 in the final minute, but it proved to be as close as they would get as Angela Phillips and Leah Phillips combined to hit three charity tosses down the stretch for a 63-49 road victory.
The win by Indiana State ended Arkansas State's nine-game winning streak at home.
“Coming into this game, we have not played as well as we should have on the road,” Wiedie commented. “Tonight, we were able to do just that against a talented Arkansas State team. We talked to the team all week about treating this game like a conference game because our first two games next week in the league are on the road. Over the past two games and a couple weeks of practice, we have gotten stronger in several areas.”
Through the first nine games of the season, Indiana State made more free throws than each of its opponents, but on this day, Arkansas State made 12 charity tosses as compared to the Sycamores' seven. ISU was 7-of-9 from the free throw line in victory while the Indians were 12-of-20.
The Sycamores connected on 8-of-22 3-point field goals in the game, four of which belonged to Kelsey Luna. Luna finished the game with 16 points while Laura Rudolphi paced the squad with 16.
“It feels really good to get back into a grove,” Luna stated. “Arkansas State is a very aggressive team and they really overplayed on defense, allowing the other guards to get me the ball for open looks. It just really feels great to finally get some shots to fall and walk out of here with a road victory.”
Maria Olsthoorn reached double figures scoring for the third consecutive game, posting 11 points.
Indiana State hit 43.6% of their shots from the field, while holding the Indians to just a 26.6% clip. Arkansas State hit only 3-of-24 shots from long range.
With the victory, Indiana State finishes the non-conference portion of the slate with a 6-4 record, marking the sixth consecutive campaign in which they have had a better than .500 record heading into conference play. This year's squad accomplished the feat against the nation's 63rd-toughest schedule, according to collegerpi.com.
The highlight of the non-conference schedule was a pair of road victories over Eastern Illinois and Arkansas State as well as the impressive home court victory over No. 17 nationally-ranked Vanderbilt.
The Indiana State Sycamores return to action on January 3 when they open Missouri Valley Conference play at defending league champion, Southern Illinois. Tip-off is set for 8:05 p.m. (EST) at SIU Arena.
