Dawn Plitzuweit sees more improvement coming for Gophers, despite losing skid

After Thursday’s disappointing 68-60 loss to Iowa at Williams Arena — a game in which the Gophers women’s basketball team started slowly but fought back to tie the game with just over 4 minutes left — Minnesota’s coach made a promise. Hang with this team, Dawn Plitzuweit said, because:

“I think we’re going to continue to improve,” she said.

The Gophers (18-6 overall, 6-6 Big Ten) have lost three straight — their only losing streak of the season — heading into Sunday’s home game against Indiana. In a loss at USC, the Gophers couldn’t come back from a slow start. At UCLA the Gophers started strong but didn’t finish.

The Iowa loss was a bit of both. They were outscored 13-2 to start the game. From that point until Grace Grocholski scored with 4½ minutes left to tie the game at 51, the Gophers outscored the Hawkeyes 49-38, only to have the Hawkeyes finish the game strong.

The good news: The Gophers' net rankings, according to the NCAA, remained at 29. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme still has the Gophers in the NCAA tournament field. But he also predicted 12 Big Ten teams would make the field, and right now the Gophers are in a two-way tie for 11th with the same Iowa team that won Thursday night.

So the opportunity is still there, but any wiggle room is disappearing.

“We’ve got to learn, and we’ve got to adjust and find ways to capitalize in situations when we have them,” Plitzuweit said after Thursday’s game. “We had opportunities, too. We got the ball inside and faded on some scenarios. We didn’t get offensive rebounds. We missed 37 shots. There are a lot of things we can go back and look at.”

Given the Gophers’ remaining conference schedule, Sunday’s game against Indiana (15-7, 7-4) looms large. Minnesota has yet to have what would be termed a bad loss. But it doesn’t have much in the way of strong wins, either.

The Gophers' best victory came at home over Illinois on Jan. 5. But they are 0-5 vs. teams ranked in the AP Top 25 when the Gophers played them. According to the NCAA net ratings, the Gophers are 0-4 in Quad 1 games, which are defined as home games vs. top 30 teams, neutral-court games against top 50 teams or road victories against top 75 teams. Their only Quad 2 victory is against Illinois.

The Gophers' remaining schedule has them hosting the Hoosiers, going to No. 8 Ohio State, hosting Oregon, playing at Purdue, hosting Washington and finishing the regular season at Michigan State.

Creme lists Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan State and Oregon in his latest NCAA field projection. Washington is the first team out.

Injuries have hurt the Gophers, who are playing without leading scorer Mara Braun and top reserve Taylor Woodson. There is no question that health is a huge factor in success during the Big Ten grind.

But other teams have managed to overcome significant injuries, including Illinois, which is tied for fifth with Maryland in the Big Ten, despite losing top scorer Makira Cook. Maryland has been beset by injuries, too. Nebraska lost last year’s freshman of the year, Natalie Potts, early in the season.

The Hoosiers graduated their top two scorers from last year’s tournament team in Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia. Like the Gophers, many of their wins have come against struggling teams — Penn State, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Rutgers. But they have three victories against ranked teams. They are 2-4 in Quad 1 games, 5-2 in Quad 2 games.

For a team still ranked high in the conference in defense, many of the questions needing answers are at the other end. The Gophers have lost four of five games and shot better than 40% in just one of those, a victory against Wisconsin. They are 29-for-108 (26.8%) on three-pointers.

“If you’re not going to make open shots then you have to find different ways to attack,” Plitzuweit said. “We did some of that in the late third quarter into the fourth. But it took us a long time to get to that point. Or make open shots. That would certainly help us as well. I think that’s something we’re capable of doing.”

One problem is that the Gophers have struggled much of the season to finish at the rim, something Plitzuweit noted the team has been talking about since summer practice.

In a 20-9 run that took the Gophers from 11 down late in the third quarter until Grocholski tied the game, the Gophers hit all six free throws, made six of 13 shots overall and two of five three-point attempts.

They’ll see if they can find that shooting touch against Indiana.

2 p.m., Sunday at Williams Arena

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Four Gophers finished in double figures in Thursday’s home loss to Iowa, led by freshman Tori McKinney, with 16. Indiana (15-7, 7-4 Big Ten), led by one of the best three-point shooters in the Big Ten Conference (Yarden Garzon), has won three straight games by a total of 40 points, including one-sided victories over Nebraska and Rutgers. Garzon is averaging 14.6 points and making 41.1% of her threes, the biggest reason why the Hoosiers are No. 1 in the conference in threes made per game (8.1).