ROSEMONT, Ill. – Big Ten Basketball Media Days is usually an exercise in looking forward to the season to come, but once in a while, there’s the chance to look back too.
So it was for Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren and her Hoosiers on Wednesday during the women’s session of Media Day.
Indiana advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, but the Hoosiers were confronted with undefeated top-seed South Carolina. Few teams had even pushed the Gamecocks, but much less defeated them.
For a long time, it seemed Indiana would be in the same boat. With 7:30 left in the third quarter, the Hoosiers trailed 56-34.
A funny thing happened on the way to South Carolina’s coronation – the Hoosiers fought back.
Indiana missed just three more shots for the remainder of the third quarter, converting 56.2% overall in the period to cut their deficit to 65-55.
In the fourth quarter, the Hoosiers remained hot. The South Carolina lead was cut in half by the 7:20 mark of the final period. With 1:08 left, Indiana trailed just 74-72, but the Gamecocks would hold on for a 79-75 victory.
Indiana was the only team to lose by a single-digit margin to South Carolina in the tournament and one of just six games in the 2024 season where the Gamecocks won by a margin of 10 or less.
It’s a loss, but there are losses that can be considered honorable. While Indiana coach Teri Moren didn’t explicitly say that, you could tell there was pride in the near-upset effort.
“I still look at Dawn (Staley, South Carolina coach) down there going, ‘Dawn’s nervous right now. I can feel it. I can feel Dawn being nervous,” Moren said on Wednesday. “And Dawn was probably only nervous in one other game and that was against Tennessee (in the SEC Tournament) when (Kamilla) Cardoso had to hit that long three to win. But there wasn’t a lot of other games that Dawn Staley was nervous. I have tremendous respect for Dawn, her staff and those players, but I think Dawn was getting a little nervous.”
Indiana guard Sydney Parrish said she watched the game recently when it popped up for her on a search for something else.
” I just watched it last week for the first time. I was on Youtube searching for a podcast I watch whenever I make breakfast. It was one of the first things that popped up. I thought the first week of practice was a good time to look back at last year,” Parrish said.
Moren said she didn’t have any major regrets about the way Indiana defended South Carolina – a team that presents all manner of compromises to consider given their depth of talent – but she had one offensive approach she might change.
“Mac (center Mackenzie Holmes) was too far away from the basket. We brought her out hoping she could knock down a couple of threes trying to bring Cardoso out to guard her,” Moren said. “As the game went along, we went back to what we did best which was to keep Mac around the basket. In hindsight, I probably should have put Mac on the block a little bit more offensively.
If not for an ice-cold Indiana start – the Hoosiers converted 26.3% in the first quarter, the outcome might have been different, but the Hoosiers had no reason to hang their heads. Moral victory? Maybe, but they came closer than anyone did in preventing South Carolina’s march to an undefeated season.
“I think you’re pleased with the comeback. You knew it was in them,” Moren said.
The players who played in that game want the fight-back to have carryover into the 2025 season.
“We battled and I think that’s going to be an identity of our team this year,” Parrish said.
Indiana point guard Chloe Moore-McNeil agreed.
“It is important for this year. We battled and we belonged,” Moore-McNeil said.
