BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball fans turned Assembly Hall into Times Square Sunday afternoon, only without the party hats.

They made their own noise, though.

Mackenzie Holmes, step to the left and score. Standing ovation. Chloe Moore-McNeil, another free throw. Standing ovation. Sydney Parrish, long-range jumper. Standing ovation.

The atmosphere was definitely party on.

The Hoosiers defeated Nebraska 74-62, throwing a 12-0 shutout in overtime, on New Year’s Day, and it was a W that did not come easily. But it was a win that may have said more about their status than one of the early season romps that contributed to the team’s 13-1 record.

It was only a few days before with an 83-78 loss to Michigan State on the road IU proved its fallibility. Holmes scored a career-high 32 points then, but the Hoosiers committed a disappointing 21 turnovers. Coach Teri Moren despises turnovers the way most people are irritated by bug bites.

Being ambushed by the 9-5 Spartans, followed by facing a pesky 10-5 Nebraska squad that the Hoosiers couldn’t shake — it was 62-62 after regulation — was a test of character. It was one thing to have one comparative clunker of a game, but losing two in a row to non-ranked Big Ten teams may have sent a message of doubt the Hoosiers didn’t want to read.

For much of the Nebraska game, fans were grumbling more than cheering. IU could not make its shots from outside. Rather than seem like a cozy home gym, Assembly Hall looked like an alien place Indiana had never seen before.

The Cornhuskers nailed their own critical three-pointers, and the main reason IU survived was a massive 24-9 disparity on made free throws. The explanation for that was straightforward. Once IU began missing from outside the arc, and outside anywhere, Moren urged her troops to attack, attack, by driving to the hoop. Nebraska fouled regularly.

It took better late-game defense from all, and finally, some big shots by Sydney Parrish (16 points), including the layup that carried IU into overtime and the three-pointer that gave the Hoosiers the lead in OT to walk off satisfied.

Until then, Parrish was one of the guilty parties. IU had not previously run into a scenario where all of its perimeter players were off target at once, but Yarden Garzon (11 points), Moore-McNeil (13), who played a heady floor game, and Parrish were colder than the non-seasonable January temperature outside. The Hoosiers escaped despite going 4-for-16 on threes.

“Coach said, ‘Keep shooting, keep shooting,’” Parrish said.

She did, and when the ball went down, the red-clad fans got noisy. There were 7,152 spectators for a game televised nationally on ESPN, the largest and most avid of the season and the eighth largest in IU women’s basketball history. Moren noticed the support.

“Great crowd today on New Year’s Day,” Moren said. “We needed every single one of those rear ends that were in the seats. We needed every one of them.”

Many teams say they train for the fourth quarter to outlast the opposition, but this was one time when IU, in a dogfight the entire way, showed it with that 12-0 containing stretch in overtime to clinch the game.

“We are built for moments like that,” said Holmes, who had 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots and was selected co-Big Ten player of the week. “We take a lot of pride in being a better conditioned team.”

Or in being a better team overall. Starting the week, the Hoosiers were ranked No. 4 in the country, equal to their best ever. The loss didn’t hurt much, dropping them to No. 6 this week. Neither Michigan State nor Nebraska is ranked (nor is next Sunday’s foe, Northwestern), so this is evidence just about every time out in league play, IU can expect a war.

“I have a feeling a lot of our (Big Ten) games are going to be like that,” Moren said. “There’s just a lot of talent, top to bottom. Night in and night out, if you’re not ready to play, you’re always at risk of coming up short.”

The win also demonstrated the value of making foul shots. The Hoosiers hit 24 of those 30 tries with Moore-McNeil 8-for-9. Unless the game is on the line, which it was, fans often take free throws for granted in terms of investing emotional energy. But these fans didn’t, and neither did Moren.

As she put it, there are different ways to score points. Yes, the three-pointer is flashy, but those one-at-a-time free shots count — and matter — too.

Lew Freedman writes sports columns for The Tribune. Send comments to [email protected].