Upon first glance, Indiana women’s basketball received a tough NCAA Tournament draw.
The Hoosiers (24-5) earned their No. 4 seed, giving them home-court advantage in the first two rounds. But they’re up against a No. 13 seed in Fairfield (31-1) that hasn’t lost since mid-November and may feel it deserved a higher seed.
If IU defeats the Stags, it may face No. 5 seed Oklahoma (22-9) — the Big 12 regular season outright champions, which swept No. 1 seed Texas and played a more challenging non-conference schedule than the Hoosiers.
Should Indiana get through to the Sweet 16, it would set up — in all likelihood — a matchup with No. 1 overall seed South Carolina (33-0).
One of the bigger storylines of IU’s year was letdown performances in several big games. That wasn’t the case in every big game on the schedule, but it happened enough to be one of the themes from this regular season. And IU head coach Teri Moren never shied away from that. But the Hoosiers showed resilience coming out of those rough outings, and that veteran mentality gives her confidence that they can navigate a seemingly difficult bracket.
“This is a team that’s competitive, it’s a team that’s connected, it’s a team that’s mature, experienced,” Moren said during a Zoom media availability Sunday night. “Anytime you get into this tournament, it’s going to be hard. There’s going to be challenges, no matter who you play, whether first round, second round, and so forth. And so I think we’re prepared.”
Indiana enters this March Madness in a different fashion than its last several NCAA Tournament teams did.
The 2021 season and tournament were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, so IU’s No. 4 seed didn’t result in hosting the first two rounds like it normally would’ve. But it was still the program’s highest-ever seed at the time, and it reached its first-ever Elite Eight.
Indiana wanted to back up that run in 2022 and host for the first time in program history. The team’s No. 3 seed saw the latter vision come to fruition. IU had higher ambitions than its Sweet 16 ending, but it won a memorable second-round game in Bloomington and still represented itself well as a program.
Last season, in 2023, the Hoosiers earned their first-ever No. 1 seed, and carried legitimate Final Four and national championship aspirations into the postseason. Miami (Fla.) promptly ended that magical ride in the second round.
This is Moren’s sixth NCAA Tournament team at Indiana, and her fifth straight year in the bracket. And it’s the first of those six groups whose postseason experience isn’t novel.
There’s no “first-ever” for these Hoosiers. They’ve been here before. They’ve felt the pressure of high expectations. They’ve witnessed March Madness environments at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. They’ve been a No. 4 seed, and made a deep run from that position. And they’ve felt the painful sting of being on the wrong end of an upset.
Those experiences have given these players more perspective than they’ve ever had going into an NCAA Tournament. Indiana knows what it takes to go far, and knows how quickly those dreams can come crashing down.
And between those memories from previous years and going through some of this season’s lower points, Moren has tried to make sure her team learns from it all.
“It’s one thing to come up short, to fail, and some of those (letdown games this season) have been super disappointing,” Moren said. But there’s always a lesson inside of all those. You learn lessons throughout.”
Hoosiers recharging, Holmes feeling better
The Hoosiers got a needed boost from the last nine days after their loss to Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament.
During IU’s regular-season finale against Maryland, Mackenzie Holmes re-injured her left knee that’s given her problems the last three seasons. She sat on the bench for most of the loss to the Wolverines in Minneapolis, and Moren didn’t want to use the fifth-year if she could avoid it. But Holmes still played during the fourth quarter out of desperation to save the game.
But the time off allowed her to rest her knee, and she said Sunday that she’s feeling a lot better.
“I think this past week I’ve been able to get some much needed rest for my knee and I’ve been able to get back out on the floor, I’ve been practicing,” Holmes said. “So each day I think I’m feeling more and more confident on it, feeling better on it, so this week has been great for that, the aspect of the recovery of my knee.”
The All-American added she’s doing “pretty much everything” in practices, and is feeling much better entering this year’s NCAA Tournament than she did last year. Holmes sat out of Indiana’s first-round win over Tennessee Tech last season after injuring her knee during the Big Ten Tournament, and she said Sunday that she didn’t practice much after that point.
Moren and her staff were conscious of how much time the players spent on the court later in the season and ramped it down a bit to keep everyone healthy and energized. She acknowledged the difficulty of balancing that against necessary practice time to improve and maintain a competitive edge throughout the team, but doesn’t think it’s impossible to achieve both goals.
Holmes wasn’t the only one who benefitted from rest over the last week. Lilly Meister also got hurt against Maryland, though she played through it in a larger capacity than Holmes did against Michigan. Sydney Parrish played in only five games — four in her usual role and workload — after returning from a seven-game absence with a foot injury. IU had other players dealing with nagging injuries as well. Moren said the entire team was able to recharge last week.
“This was a great week for us to rest a lot, although we did practice. But we really shortened it. But it’s been a good week,” Moren said. “Yesterday was the first day we had everybody on the floor, so it was quite nice to see. But now, it’s go time for us. So we’re going to take tomorrow off, get acclimated with Fairfield, and when the guys get back here on Tuesday, we’ll be ready to go.”
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