BLOOMINGTON — Throughout IU women’s basketball’s turbulent season, head coach Teri Moren has often faced questions about her team’s weaknesses and struggles. And she frequently just doesn’t have the answers.
On several occasions, Indiana’s 11th-year coach has made clear that if she did have those solutions, she’d fix the problems immediately.
But on Thursday, Moren didn’t hesitate. After another disappointing result, a 74-60 loss to No. 19 Maryland on senior night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, she had no trouble identifying what her team has been lacking.
“It’s focus. I mean, that’s what’s missing. We’re not a very focused team,” Moren said. “I think if there’s one thing that I attribute some of our mishaps (to), it’s that. Because trust me, they see it every day. They hear it every day. (I don’t know) why it’s not resonating. But to me, it’s focus, it’s consistency — it’s probably those two things. Focus, and being consistent night in and night out.”
Moren is running out of ways to say the same things. These are themes she’s harped on at various points across the season. The Hoosiers (17-11, 9-8 Big Ten) aren’t the same team they were over the last five years — and they weren’t expected to be. Particularly in November, they anticipated some growing pains after losing Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia. Those early hiccups may have been more alarming than expected, and they expressed appropriate concern at the time. But Moren and her players resolutely assured they would get things on track as time went on.
Three months later, the team is still decidedly not on track. Aside from the six-game winning streak in December against weak opponents — only one of those six teams is ranked in the top 100 of Bart Torvik T-Rank — IU has been woefully inconsistent. The Hoosiers blew double-digit leads at Oregon and Michigan (and nearly did the same at Washington), wasted opportunities to truly turn things around against UCLA and USC, and turned in brutal performances in a win at Northwestern and a loss at Minnesota. Their two big wins, over Iowa on the road and Ohio State at home, have been the exceptions, not the standard.
Indiana is still alive to make a sixth straight NCAA Tournament, and will be a double-digit favorite in the regular-season finale at Purdue on Sunday. But the frustration is palpable over the way this season has gone so far. When asked after Thursday’s game what this team is missing right now, graduate student Sydney Parrish gathered her emotions and pondered for a moment, before sighing and letting out a faint, “I don’t know.”
“Maryland’s a ranked team. They’re really good. We’re not ranked. But we know we need to come out with those wins. We’ve seen it a couple of times this season,” Parrish said. “But we have to make sure we go to Purdue, handle business, and then it’s game on. And we all know that. We have to make a run at the right time, and we’re going to do that. We’re a team that’s really together — togetherness, we say a lot. And I think we saw glimpses of that tonight. But we’ll figure it out. I’m not too worried about it. I don’t think we’ve ever blinked with this group.”
IU remains on the bubble, dropping back into ESPN’s last four in with Thursday’s loss. Maryland (22-6, 12-5) exploited Indiana’s rebounding weakness, with a 39-24 edge, and two-time all-Big Ten first team selection Shyanne Sellers put the game away with a dominant 21-point fourth quarter.
Moren ripped her team’s execution of the game-plan and performance in one-on-one defensive situations, which seemed a clear reference to Chloe Moore-McNeil’s performance against Sellers. She said IU usually does well guarding opponent’s set plays, but can suffer breakdowns after that when the other team has to improvise to beat the shot clock.
“I can’t tell you how hard we work as a staff at making sure that our scouting reports are detailed, especially with the tendencies of the players. Not just sets, we certainly cover that. But a lot of it comes down to one-on-one, right? A lot of it comes down to that one-on-one defense, tendencies of the players that you’re guarding,” Moren said. “And then most nights, a lot of that that action, the first part of it, we guard. And then when things start to flatline, it’s a broken play. And now you really got to dig your heels into the ground and you just got to play. You got to be able to guard, you got to be able to rotate, you got to be able to help each other. And that takes an incredible amount of focus.”
She later directly called out Moore-McNeil and Parrish as leaders. Indiana has had strong player leadership for years, with Ali Patberg, Grace Berger, and Holmes — and Moore-McNeil and Parrish have been part of that lineage throughout the last few years as well. Moren has long asserted the importance of player-led teams for a program’s culture.
But for things like focus, toughness, and mentality to still be problems for this team heading into March, it suggests that leadership may have taken a step back this season.
“I think back to the Ali Patbergs and the Grace Bergers, those are two of the best leaders, because they were such great competitors that they held each other accountable,” Moren said. “But they didn’t care about hurting feelings. They wanted to win.”
If that thinly veiled shot at this year’s team didn’t make clear the level of frustration and disconnect engulfing Indiana as postseason play nears, Moore-McNeil only added to the case.
IU typically sends its players in for their press conference first, and then has Moren speak after. But the head coach went first on Thursday, with Parrish and Moore-McNeil already emotional from senior night ceremonies and spending time with their families in attendance, but also having clearly received a difficult message from Moren in the locker room. The players can’t normally get questioned about comments Moren makes, but they were on Thursday.
Moore-McNeil, typically tame and measured with anything she says to the media, was asked about her coach’s disappointment over the team’s focus and fight. And while the graduate student didn’t dispute those points, she certainly didn’t offer a wholehearted agreement.
“She obviously has a different perspective because she gets to sit on the sidelines and kind of watch and see everything,” said Moore-McNeil, who then sighed before continuing. “But I think Maryland hit some tough shots, they really hit some great open shots as well. And we kind of gave them those things. We didn’t get to execute the game plan very well, I guess.”
Indiana’s season isn’t over. The Hoosiers could still turn a corner — few Big Ten opponents this year can help get that ball rolling better than Purdue (10-18, 3-14). And if they’re knocking down 3-pointers in March, they’re capable of winning some games and pushing some high-caliber teams.
But this team needs a lot to go right for those sorts of game scripts to play out, and there’s a lot working against this group.
Their depth remains a concern — Lexus Bargesser offers very little offense off the bench, and she’s the team’s most reliable backcourt reserve; and Lilly Meister looks completely lost for confidence, and she’s played less than 10 minutes in three of IU’s last five games after she started for over half of the season. Depth matters a little less in postseason play, but even accounting for that, Indiana is thin.
The Hoosiers have also had recurring issues with rebounding, turnovers, and streaky shooting. Yarden Garzon can be a dangerous weapon when she’s on her game, but when she’s off, her attempts to shoot her way out of slumps can quickly become problematic, and she can become a defensive liability. And when the Israeli isn’t hitting shots, IU rarely has another player who can take her place as the de facto first option. Karoline Striplin has shown that ability at times, but not frequent enough to reliably count on it.
When intangibles like focus, perseverance, and effort combine with those on-court problems, it only adds to the firestorm this team will have to overcome in March.
It’s not too late to start finding answers and locking in. But Indiana has precious little time remaining to figure things out this season.
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