Behind Yarden Garzon's career game, IU women's basketball beats Evansville by 53 points

BLOOMINGTON — IU women's basketball nearly set a single-game scoring record Monday night, taking down Evansville, 109-56, in its penultimate nonconference game. IU's single-game scoring record is 115 points (Nov. 15, 2014 vs. Gardner-Webb).

Here are three observations as the No. 15 Hoosiers improved to 9-1:

Yarden Garzon sets new career-high

For the first 25 minutes, sophomore Yarden Garzon couldn’t miss.

Garzon made her first seven shots from the field Monday night, picking up 18 points before her first miss at the 5-minute mark of the third quarter. She quickly picked up five more points after that, tying her career-high at 23 — which she set last month on her birthday at the Fort Myers Tip Off — at the end of the third quarter.

"She doesn't get sped up, she really plays at her own pace," IU coach Teri Moren said. "She's uber-talented because she can post up, she's obviously really good from beyond the arc, and she's a fantastic passer, and she still continues to want to be pushed and challenged."

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Garzon checked out of the game at the 1:27 mark of the third quarter, and it seemed like she wasn't going to return because of IU's hefty lead. But she checked back in at the 7-minute mark and made a 3-pointer on her first touch — cementing a new career high in both points and field goals made. She only missed one more shot for the rest of the night, finishing with 30 points on 12-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-4 beyond the arc.

"It feels great, but I really didn't think about it," Garzon said. "During the game, I didn't really know how many points I had. But I feel like, I'm trying to get better every day, and we're trying to get better as a team every day."

Early time for freshmen

In the Big Ten opener against Rutgers last week, Moren played just three players off the bench, and Lenee Beaumont was the only freshman to see time against Rutgers.

Moren changed her strategy Monday night, as Beaumont and fellow freshman Julianna LaMendola got into the game in the first quarter with a chance to play meaningful minutes. Beaumont checked into the game first at the 4-minute mark of the first quarter, and she ended up playing 17 minutes with nine points.

"Beau is just, what we see in front of us is a kid that has a bring future here," Moren said. "Her body is going to continue to change, and her strength is going to continue to improve ... much like the way Grace Berger improved."

LaMendola, who backs up Sydney Parrish at the 4, got extra time after Parrish was called for a charge for her third foul in the second quarter. She added on six points and five rebounds in her 16 minutes, and made a difference on the defensive end, as well, with three blocks.

"Jules did a lot of good stuff tonight, it was nice to see her finally knock down a three," Moren said. "She ecame up with five rebounds, and she was super active. I was happy to see Jules be productive."

Moren ended up emptying her bench by the time IU got out to a 56-point lead over Evansville, playing all 12 of her available players.

IU draws a lot of fouls, but struggles at line

Earlier this season, while acknowledging her 400th win as a head coach, Moren said to celebrate she was going to make her team shoot 400 free throws. On that Nov. 10 game against Eastern Illinois, IU went 2-of-11 from the line.

Now, a month later, IU came into the game 11th in the Big Ten and 194th in the NCAA with a 69.1% clip from the free-throw line. But Moren doesn't want free-throw shooting to stress her players out -- enough so that she's refrained from talking about it after games.

"We work on it every day, and we have really good shooters," Moren said. "We just got to have the confidence every time we step up there that they're going to go in. My biggest thing is just making sure that we don't overdo it with how much we talk about it, because then it become something they always think about. To me, as a player, you always want to go to the free-throw line and be relaxed, and also have a tremendous amount of confidence."

IU drew a staggering 14 fouls in the first half against Evansville, amounting to 24 shots from the charity stripe. The Hoosiers shot just 66% from the line in the first half, though, making 16.

The Aces didn’t foul nearly as much in the second half, but the Hoosiers still drew seven fouls in the final 20 minutes. IU finished the night 24-of-34 from the free-throw line, something fifth-year senior Mackenzie Holmes knows won't be good enough in conference play.

"You know, 70% is not going to cut it," Holmes said. "We need to knock down those free throws. We work on it every day in practice, but we just have to continue to have that confidence when we get to the line and knock them down because we got by missing 10 free throws tonight, but if we do that in the Big Ten season, it's not going to be good enough."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana women's basketball beats Evansville behind Yarden Garzon