As Indiana women’s basketball debriefed from a blowout November loss at Stanford, head coach Teri Moren wanted an answer from her players.
The Hoosiers fell flat in their second game of the year, suffering their most lopsided defeat in seven seasons. And in a team huddle after returning to Bloomington, Moren asked a simple question.
“What is it? You guys tell me. What is it?”
After hearing that, Chloe Moore-McNeil couldn’t hold it in. The Greenfield, Tenn. native knew what needed to be said, and she had to get it off her chest.
“Guys, we’re soft right now. Let’s keep it blunt. We’re soft right now.”
Moren immediately jumped back in.
“Chloe, could you say that one more time?”
“We’re soft on defense.”
IU didn’t have much to feel good about after the Stanford game. But that moment instilled belief in Moore-McNeil. Naturally more soft-spoken, the senior wasn’t the team’s most vocal presence — certainly not at the level of Mackenzie Holmes.
But Moore-McNeil was still an important leader, and Moren’s prompt approval reassured her.
“It definitely gave me the confidence to talk when things do need to be said,” Moore-McNeil said in a Zoom call with The Daily Hoosier. “Just like that little small thing with coach Moren saying, ‘Chloe, can you say that one more time,’ let me know, ‘OK, I am saying the right things, she trusts me, and she does agree with me.’”
Moore-McNeil has embraced that leadership role even more as this season’s progressed. She’s unafraid to speak up in difficult moments.
Her evolution from a quiet, reserved person into that type of verbal leader is emblematic of an Indiana career defined by growth, both on and off the court. Moore-McNeil has seen change in her personality, game, and body through her time with the Hoosiers. And it’s made her an integral part of IU’s program.
“Chloe, arguably, is the most respected player on our team, by all of the ladies, the staff, and everything, just because of how she works, how she goes about her day. So when she speaks, people listen,” women’s basketball director of athletic performance Kevin Konopasek said in a phone interview. “She has that ability, which is awesome, and is rare.”
Making weight
Moore-McNeil texted Konopasek around a week before she got to Bloomington for her freshman year in summer 2020.
Like most incoming freshmen, she needed to grow and develop physically during her first year in college. And Moore-McNeil was overwhelmed by the workout aspect of that. She was inexperienced in the weight room. So she reached out to Konopasek for reassurance before she got to Bloomington.
It was far from the last time they’d have that sort of chat.
“I remember her being a deer in headlights when she got here,” Konopasek said. “So honestly, the conversations were just kind of building up confidence in that first year and getting her used to training. And after that, it’s, ‘OK, we got that down … What are your strengths or weaknesses?’”
Moore-McNeil had a lot of work to do, both inside and outside the weight room, after arriving on campus. At that time, the 5-foot-11 guard could complete only two bench press reps at 95 pounds.
Isaac Hicks III — IU’s director of sports performance nutrition — said she arrived on campus in summer 2020 relatively lean for a female athlete. She had to build herself up in workouts, and figure out what nutritional adjustments would help her.
Results didn’t come overnight. Moore-McNeil worked closely with Konopasek and Hicks — and the rest of Indiana’s staff — through her first two years at IU to find what worked. Hicks recalled going through stages with Moore-McNeil trying several different types of shakes, which he’d blend in ways that helped her get extra calories in.
Eventually, she started to reap the benefits of all the work.
“She’s someone that I can definitely say has taken ownership of it,” Hicks said in a phone interview. “She’s even someone I’ve actually even suggested some of our underclassmen and freshmen to reach out to when they’re like, ‘How do you figure out this?’ I’m like, ‘Chloe’s someone who’s got it together by now.’ (The muscle is) definitely staying on for her, which you can tell.”
Weight fluctuates, so numbers can vary without any real changes at times, and those numbers don’t always tell a complete story. But over the course of her Indiana career, Moore-McNeil has gained 11 pounds overall, and just under 13 pounds of lean mass. While doing that, she lost two pounds of body fat — a more notable figure than it sounds like because she was already lean coming into college, so she (and IU’s staff) wanted to put on weight without cutting too much of her already lesser amount of fat.
Moore-McNeil faced the same challenges many student-athletes deal with when they get to campus as freshmen, in respect to their bodies. But she encountered additional obstacles that some others don’t face with that because of her troubles keeping weight on. While she’s gained 11 pounds over the last four years, she’s up 19 pounds since June 2022.
“She struggled to understand the demands of her sport, at times, and getting her routine and fueling pattern down, which caused her weight to fluctuate down at different points throughout her first 18 months here,” Hicks said. “However, in (summer) 2022, I’d say that is where she found her stride and locked into not only meeting her needs, but understanding personally and owning where she needs to be weight-wise and nutritionally to be successful.”
Moore-McNeil saw the changes make a difference in the weight room, and she’s come a long way from the two bench press reps. Last summer, going into her senior year, she was able to do 13 reps at 95 pounds. She said she’s doubled or tripled the weight and reps she’s able to handle on many exercises from where she started out.
The point guard started noticing those changes make an on-court impact as a junior, in 2022-23, when she first entered IU’s regular starting lineup. They helped take her game to another level.
“I think physically, being able to finish through contact. Being able to seek more and-one opportunities, not just throwing it up trying to get the foul called,” Moore-McNeil said. “And I also think it helped me tremendously mentally, with my confidence. Knowing, ‘Hey, I’m very capable of getting and-ones.’”
‘The ultimate floor general’
Moore-McNeil has been an effective defender for much of her Indiana career. It’s what helped her leap from 7.3 minutes per game as a freshman to 21.2 as a sophomore.
But she hasn’t always been a defense-first player. In high school, Moore-McNeil was more of a primary offensive threat. But as a recruit and commit, IU coaches reminded her of the program’s defensive-minded culture and that she wouldn’t play much if she couldn’t defend. So defense became her priority as she got to Bloomington.
And it paid off. In some ways, she became an heir apparent to Nicole Cardaño-Hillary, as the team’s best guard defender. Moore-McNeil may not play with the same pest-like scrappiness that Cardaño-Hillary did, but she’s still a tenacious defender and has more length than the class of 2022 alum did. She was selected to the All-Big Ten Defensive Team last year.
Moore-McNeil’s offensive game began to flourish last season as a junior, when she finished third in the nation with a 3.2 assist-to-turnover ratio. Her 4.8 assists per game ranked second on the team, behind Grace Berger. And she improved her shooting percentages to help lift her scoring from 5.2 points per game as a sophomore to 9.5 last year. She earned All-Big Ten second team honors for her strong year.
That growth happened because of her hard work, but also because of her increased confidence.
“Since I’ve gotten here, my teammates, the coaching staff, they believed in me,” Moore-McNeil said after a 13-point game against Michigan in Feb. 2023. “And I think it’s about time that I just believe in myself.”
That mentality carried over into this year. She smoothly stepped in as the team’s primary point guard, averaging a career-high 5.1 assists per game with just 1.4 turnovers per game — an even better assist-to-turnover ratio than her junior season — through Indiana’s first 11 games.
But Moren still needed more. The Hoosiers had nine days between their win over Bowling Green and a New Year’s Eve matchup with Illinois, and they used that time for a lot of self-evaluation and 1-on-1 conversations between Moren and her players.
When she met with Moore-McNeil, Moren told the senior the team needed her to provide more of an offensive punch, and that she trusts her with the ball.
“That’s something that, when she said out loud, it kind of hit me, like, ‘OK, I do need to change my ways,’” Moore-McNeil said. “I feel like she wouldn’t be asking me that if she didn’t think I was capable of doing that on offense.”
The point guard responded in a big way against the Fighting Illini, tying a career high by scoring 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting. She also tied a career high with four turnovers, a byproduct of playing more aggressively and trying to make more plays.
That day marked the beginning of a new chapter in Moore-McNeil’s career. In 16 games since her conversation with Moren, Moore-McNeil has averaged 11.6 points, 4.5 assists, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.0 steals per game, while shooting 50 percent from the field, 45.7 percent from 3-point range, and 83.8 percent at the foul line. Those statistics were all improvements from the first 11 games, except for assists. And she’s also committed a career-high 2.2 turnovers per game in that span — but Indiana can live with that as the cost of Moore-McNeil playing more aggressively.
And even with this change, she still owns a 2.56 assist-to-turnover ratio this season, good for 18th in the country and second in the Big Ten.
Moore-McNeil has twice set a new career-high in scoring since New Year’s Eve — both against Purdue. Against Michigan State, she became only the second player in program history to record a triple-double, with 10 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds. She’s become more than just a distributor — she’s become a threat.
“She’s the ultimate floor general,” Maryland head coach Brenda Frese said after IU’s win in College Park in late January. “She knows how to facilitate, she’s so athletic, obviously defensively, she’s really quick and handsy and wreaks havoc. And on the offensive end, she just knows how to get downhill, how to dump off to Holmes, knows when to have to make a big play for them. She’s the ultimate floor general.”
Speaking up
Indiana had a leadership void after Berger graduated. The Hoosiers had Holmes returning as an already prominent vocal leader, but they knew how important Berger’s quieter, lead-by-example presence was. And coming out of last season, many within the program felt Moore-McNeil was suited for that role.
But it took a lot of work to get her comfortable in that capacity.
Konopasek and Hicks typically meet with the players a few weeks after the season ends to conduct body composition assessments and start setting goals for the offseason. Earlier in Moore-McNeil’s career, those meetings centered around continued efforts to add weight and further develop physically. And while those were still priorities for Moore-McNeil going into this season, IU’s staff wanted her to work on using her voice.
“I told her, ‘Leading in the weight room — whether that’s in a team competition that we’re doing on a conditioning day, or just talking, coaching up your training partner during a lift, those are reps. Those are just extra reps that you can get from a leadership perspective,’” Konopasek said. “So going into the offseason, that’s what I told her. ‘That’s practice for you. Anytime we’re in the weight room, that’s when you can start to lead.’”
Moore-McNeil responded to that challenge with the same level of intensity she brings to the court during games. A lot of the team’s offseason training is designed to put the players in uncomfortable situations, to force them to lean on each other to get through it. And the senior took that opportunity to work on her communication and leadership skills. She encouraged her teammates through those tough times, but also held them accountable when necessary.
That was where she began finding her voice.
The moment after the Stanford game only solidified her confidence in speaking up. And it became a more frequent occurrence, particularly in the second half of the season.
“She came in as a freshman — in fact, during the COVID season, she didn’t see the floor hardly ever. But she trusted the process, stayed the course, got in the gym every single day, and she’s just a product of the work she’s put in,” Holmes said after the Michigan State game. “And that doesn’t happen overnight. She’ll tell you, it took one, two years for her to really gain that confidence. Now being a senior, she’s really come out of her shell.”
The persistence Holmes mentioned is a big reason why teammates respect Moore-McNeil so much. In the transfer portal era, her path — not playing much early on, but maintaining belief in the program and sticking with it until her time arrived — has become much less common. Moore-McNeil’s teammates recognize the work she’s put in to get where she is.
And when she speaks, they listen.
When Moren pulled IU’s starters late in the fourth quarter of a big victory over Minnesota, Moore-McNeil emphatically reminded the reserves to play hard and finish strongly.
When Maryland made a big third-quarter push to cut IU’s large lead down to single-digits, the senior told her team in the huddle, “Everybody sit down, take a deep breath, they made their run, and that’s it. We are fine. We’re going to finish this game out, and we’re going to win.” Indiana calmly put that game away in the fourth quarter.
It doesn’t always lead to wins — she also got on her teammates during huddles at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where IU lost to Iowa by 27 points — but the Hoosiers respond to her.
This type of outspoken leadership doesn’t come naturally to Moore-McNeil. It’s outside of her comfort zone. But she does it because she knows it helps her team.
Moren said she and the staff have had to draw the vocal leadership out of Moore-McNeil, at times, like they did with Berger.
And with every passing game, Moren said, Moore-McNeil has gotten more comfortable in that role.
“She is the heart and soul,” Moren said after the Michigan State game. “I love her leadership. I love her heart. I love how hard she plays, and her teammates respect her, because of the process. They’ve watched her. They watched her sit, they watched her work, and they watched her be committed.”
An important piece
After all the growth she’s undergone, the Chloe Moore-McNeil suiting up for Indiana in 2024 looks like an entirely different player than the one who came to Bloomington in 2020.
She may not have even recognized herself.
“If my freshman year self saw my senior self now,” Moore-McNeil said, “it would probably ask, ‘What in the world got into you? And how did you become this type of person?’ Cause first of all, I never imagined being able to put on the muscle mass I have. Getting physically stronger, mentally stronger, I never imagined being in this role that I have with this team.”
Her work with Konopasek and Hicks helped with the physical aspect, and her time spent observing players like Holmes, Berger, and Ali Patberg helped with leadership. And it’s all contributed to a Moore-McNeil that’s as confident as ever on the court.
But her future is uncertain. Moore-McNeil has one year of eligibility — her COVID year — still available to use. And as of Feb. 28, she remained undecided about whether or not she’ll use the extra year, and if she does, whether or not she’ll return to IU.
The Hoosiers will have Sydney Parrish and Yarden Garzon back in the starting lineup next year, but with Holmes and Sara Scalia exhausting their eligibility this season, Indiana will look different. Moore-McNeil’s return would be a significant boon to IU’s post-Holmes outlook.
Throughout her IU career, Moore-McNeil has always been a player whose full contributions aren’t reflected in box scores. And whether this year is her last run as a Hoosier or she comes back for one more season, her legacy will reflect those efforts.
Moore-McNeil is a player who worked extremely hard and changed so much over the last four years in the pursuit of bettering Indiana women’s basketball.
“They don’t make kids like Chloe anymore,” Moren said. “By that I mean, kids that come in as freshmen and don’t play, but they believe in the staff, they believe in the process, they watch the older kids that are ahead of them and how they work and how they’ve been developed. And she just knew it was a matter of time before it was going to be her turn. A lot of those kids leave and they try to go somewhere else and find a starting spot or find more playing time. And Chloe was never one of those kids.”
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