When the Hoosiers began practice in Oct of 2005, they faced three significant questions. Would Jenny DeMuth return to her pre-acl form? Could Cyndi Valentin adjust to sharing the ball with DeMuth? Could new coach Sharon Versyp find enough players to compliment the two? The answers were: almost, definitely and yes.
That was good enough to earn the Hoosiers the title as the surprise of the Big 10 season.
Behind Valentin and DeMuth’s 32.3 points a game, the Indiana offense was more effective than it had ever been under former coach Kathi Bennett. Versyp found three more players who contributed points on a more or less consistent basis. While their 41.6 field goal percent won’t win any awards, it was much better then the 35.2% they managed in the prior season. More importantly, they were able to maintain their offense against Big 10 teams. In 2005, the Hoosiers shot a woeful 33.5% against conference opponents. In 2006, that had improved to 41.9%.The team managed to improve on offensive without sacrificing defense. They held opponents to 58.7 points and 38.7% field shooting.
While the offensive improvement was impressive, the key to the season was rebounding. In 2005, they were outrebounded by 9.6 boards a game in league play. In 2006 they outrebounded conference opponents by 2.5 a game. This improvement of 12 a game is extremely impressive. It’s also the major reason why the Hoosiers were in the running for an NCAA bid until very late in the season.
Both DeMuth and Valentin had excellent seasons. DeMuth was not quite able to return to the form she had in the 2004 season, but she still put up excellent numbers. She ended the season averaging 13.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists a game. But it was Valentin who stepped up huge. After spending three seasons being a good but not special player, Valentin improved her play significantly. She finished the season averaging 18.5 points a game. More importantly, her shooting improved drastically. In the season DeMuth was out, she shot only 37%. In her senior year, that jumped a full 10%. The excellent shooting elevated her to the level of elite.
The improvements led the Hoosiers to their first post-season appearance since the end of the 2000-01 season. They won two games of the WNIT before their season almost ended. It didn’t end there because there were major off-court occurrences that may affect the program for years to come. Despite having one of the better seasons a first year coach has had in the Big 10 in years, Sharon Versyp resigned. She chose to take the head job at her alma mater, Purdue.
That decision meant that a very good Indiana season ended with a definite thud.
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