SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Assistant coach Rhet Wierzba could be heard through the ESPN broadcast. With a limited capacity crowd in Bill Greehay Arena, Wierzba's voice was often echoing throughout the gym.
Instead of screaming out a play or a defensive assignment, this particular outburst was one of excitement. Aleksa Gulbe skied up for a rebound in the fourth quarter, drew contact and went back up with it for an and-one.
Wierzba screamed from the Hoosiers' bench, "Now that's a rebound. Great job!"
His enthusiasm for Gulbe's offensive putback encapsulated the performance Gulbe had on the glass all night long. Of the five starters, Gulbe had the fewest amount of points (9), but she grabbed 15 rebounds as Indiana defeated Belmont 70-48 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since the NCAA made the women's tournament a 64-team field.
"A lot of the things she does doesn't always show up on the stat sheet," junior guard Grace Berger said. "So it's nice to see her get 15 rebounds. She's a huge part of the team, and she never cares to take any of the credit for it. This is what she does for us every game."
Indiana did a much better job in this game getting the ball inside to Mackenzie Holmes from the start. Holmes scored eight points on four shot attempts in the first quarter whereas she only had two shot attempts in the first half in Indiana's first game against VCU.
A 6-0 run early in the second quarter for Indiana allowed the Hoosiers to take their first double-digit lead of the game, and even though the team didn't shoot it well in the second quarter, the defense carried them once again.
Indiana held Belmont scoreless in the final 4:27 of the second quarter, allowing the Hoosiers to take a 30-18 into halftime. Belmont was 0-13 from three in the first half.
"We just did what he had to do and guarded our man one-on-one and just took pride in our defense," Berger said. "Eventually it paid off."
The Bruins opened the second half by making their first 3-pointer of the game, cutting the lead to single digits, but Indiana didn't let them gain any momentum after that.
As soon as the Hoosiers pushed it back up to double digits early in the third quarter, they only extended the lead from there.
For the second-straight game, Indiana rolled in the second half, putting the Bruins away by 22 points.
Berger led the way for Indiana with 17 points, Holmes scored 13, Ali Patberg had 13 and Nicole Cardaño-Hillary scored 10. Cardaño-Hillary also did a solid job guarding Belmont's Destinee Wells, holding her to 7-of-20 shooting on the day.
"She is not afraid of the moment," head coach Teri Moren said. "That's the one thing I've appreciated about coaching her. When you give her a challenge, and we've given her many, especially on opposing teams' ball handlers, she embraces it."
Moren was able to empty the bench toward the end of the fourth quarter as well and reward some of those players with baskets in the NCAA Tournament.
The Hoosiers' complete team performance led to a locker room celebration that left Moren's hair soaked during her postgame press conference.
The Hoosiers made history, and even though there's more games to be played, Moren wants her team to celebrate this monumental milestone.
"We have our 24-hour rule. We're going to enjoy this one tonight," Moren said. "I want them to relish it, I really do. This is a historic moment for Indiana women's basketball, and they deserve being in this moment."
As the Hoosiers keep dancing to the Sweet Sixteen, they will run into the No. 1 seed in their region, which is NC State.
That game is scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 27, at 6 p.m. ET.
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