IU women's basketball adjusts to life without Grace Berger as injured guard takes new role

BLOOMINGTON -- Grace Berger stuck out at the end of the IU bench, taking up three seats as a basketball game played out in front of her in the now infamous Las Vegas hotel ballroom. She sat on the far left side of the bench, her right leg propped up on two chairs next to her, ice taped to her knee.

During timeouts, her teammates left the sideline to gather around coach Teri Moren on the floor. Berger had little choice but to stay put.

There wasn’t a lot she could do after exiting the game a minute after it started, injuring her knee on a collision with an Auburn player. Indiana won by 25 that night, then picked up another double-digit victory over Memphis the next day, for which Berger wasn’t in uniform.

An MRI after the team returned to Indiana revealed the injury — the specifics of which haven’t been disclosed — to not be season-ending, according to the team. Moren has described Berger as both out indefinitely and day-to-day. Berger was not made available to the media.

Either way, Berger won’t play against No. 6 North Carolina on Thursday. As the rest of the team prepares for the top-10 matchup, Berger has taken on more of a coach-like role, leaning on her experience to help her teammates without being on the court.

“She provides just wisdom and experience, and she can talk to those guys still in practice and on the bench,” Moren said. “Just provide all of that advice, plus enthusiasm, energy.”

Berger is now in her fifth year at IU, all under Moren. She has played both guard spots and consequently knows the offense and defense better than anyone else on the roster. For now, all she can do is pass that knowledge along to the rest of the team.

“I know it’s killing her that she’s not gonna be able to participate tomorrow night,” Moren said.

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For all the veteran savvy Berger brings IU, she doesn’t have much experience sitting. Saturday was the first game she missed in her college career. She started every game in four years of high school at Sacred Heart Academy in Louisville, possibly missing one with a tweaked ankle. Coach Donna Moir doesn’t quite remember.

She does remember Berger was dealing with an ankle injury, her only ailment in high school. Before a regular-season game, Sacred Heart’s third all-time leading scorer was a game-time decision.

Never especially talkative around Moir, Berger turned to her coach as tipoff approached. “I’m going,” she declared.

“I don’t know that her ankle was in the best shape, but you weren’t going to sit her down,” Moir recently said over the phone. “She’s just that tough.”

Without Berger, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Yarden Garzon split the primary ball handling duties for IU against Auburn. The next game, Sydney Parrish moved into the starting lineup at power forward. Every starter played at least 33 minutes.

For as much production as the Hoosiers will miss with Berger out, its roster is among the more well-equipped in the country to handle losing a star player. The four other starters at the beginning of the year included two seniors and a junior. Parrish is also a junior, having played two years at Oregon before transferring to IU over the offseason.

It makes for a team that, after the shell shock of losing Berger wore off, recovered against Auburn to stay undefeated. North Carolina, tougher than any opponent IU has faced this season, will be the next test as the Hoosiers forge ahead with Berger on the sideline.

“I think all of us, including myself, were a little bit out of sorts for a couple minutes there, but there was a job to do, and that’s what I appreciated,” Moren said. “The maturity level that they all showed, the toughness that they showed, that although one of their teammates, our leader, was not on the floor with us, they did their job. They understood that, ‘Hey, when one person goes down, the rest of us have to rise to the occasion.’ And that was great to see.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU women's basketball: Preparing for UNC without Grace Berger (knee)