BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren spoke to the media on Wednesday during Indiana’s annual basketball media day at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall as the 2024-25 season gets closer.
Among other things, Moren spoke about how Indiana’s offense will be changed with the different personnel included on the roster. Indiana lost Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia from the 2024 starting lineup, but gained Penn State transfer guard Shay Ciezki and Tennessee transfer forward Karoline Striplin.
They join Indiana veteran starters Yarden Garzon, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Sydney Parrish. Moren also spoke about the ascension of Lilly Meister to the starting center role and spoke of Lexus Bargesser developing a new shot.
Here’s the full transcript:
Opening statement …
Moren: What a crowd. It’s great to see everybody. I say this every year, but it’s so true. It’s crazy how fast the summer goes and we’re back at it. Excited to be here in front of you guys. I’m excited for you guys to get an early glimpse of our roster in Cook (Hall) after this is over. And I think that you will once again find a team that is very much together. The chemistry is really, really good. We have brought in some new faces, both on our team and on our roster and as well as our staff.
And so we’ve had a little bit of a makeover, I wouldn’t say a huge makeover, but a little bit of one. And we’re excited for the season to start. Next week, we’ll start our official practice. We’ve been going, as most teams have been about three times a week for our group. And you know, to say that this group is ready would be an understatement. I had Jules LaMendola was in my office today, and we were talking about her growth over the summer, the strides that she’s made. She said I just can’t wait for it to really start. Next week it will start for us so good to be here.
On the veteran leadership of Sydney Parrish and Chloe Moore-McNeil …
Moren: We know that Chloe and Syd are two of our leaders in that locker room and for our entire team. But I have to tell you that being able to recruit both Shay (Ciezki) and Karoline Striplin from Tennessee, the transition that they’ve made has been seamless into our team. And I think it does start at the top with, you know, with Chloe and Syd establishing what our standards are and what our program is about.
That also takes those guys that want to come in and be a part of that, because, as we all know, every program does things differently. We feel like we do things differently here in Indiana in terms of our expectations and what that’s going to look like. The standards, the work ethic, all of it being about each other.
We had to find two special people in Shay and Karoline that could come in and really fit in from the jump. At Penn State, Shay had a had a big role. Karoline had a big role at Tennessee. And so for them to come in and and walk into a team that’s already has some talent – with Yarden and Chloe and Syd – you know, you got Jules and Beau (Lenée Beaumont) and Lilly (Meister and Lexi (Bargesser) all who had a lot of playing time last year. We had to find the right fit for us, and I think we hit it out of the park with Shay and Strip.
On Penn State transfer Shay Ciezki …
Moren: She’s a bulldog. That’s only the best way to describe her. She’s a gym rat. She’s ate up with the game. She’s in (the gym) all the time, which, again, we talk about being in the gym doing more than what’s required here is not just an expectation. It’s become a lifestyle for our players. And she was looking for that. She was searching for a place where being in the being in a gym was, not just going to be her, right? She was going to have other teammates that were going to be in there with her.
She’s a smart, high IQ basketball player. She’s relentless on the defensive side of the ball. A lot of that had to do with the way they played at Penn State a year ago. Their pressing and trying to be relentless defensively. She’s brought that kind of mindset, which is good. She’s a communicator, she’s mature, she’s all the things that you want. I think she’s just going to add to the leadership that’s already in the locker room, because I think she has has a lot of miles on her legs in terms of the experience. She’s been great. I know this. I think when you talk to her, I think she’s really happy with the decision that she made to come here.
On fit being more important than talent …
Moren: We learned that lesson. I think early when we got here, that fit is so important to what you’re trying to do when you’re trying to build a program. I do believe you can find those highly competitive, character players. You just got to you got to dig a little deeper. You got to ask better questions in the recruiting process. You have to paint a really vivid picture of what it’s going to be like to be here, be a student-athlete here, and and that’s with the parents as well, but especially with those kids.
I think you can find those kids, because there’s so many of those young guys that want to say they like being in the gym, but do they really like being in the gym? Right? And when I say lifestyle, that’s what it is around here, I mean, we do that because we found by doing that, we’ve been able to build a program and and so doing more than than what’s required will always be a piece of the recipe. You certainly got to find those skilled players. There’s no doubt you have to have talent.
We’re in a different era of women’s basketball. You know, it’s very much kind of like the men, but not like the men in terms of the money. I mean, these guys, the men that come to Indiana have those expectations of playing in the NBA. Well, our girls aren’t any different. I mean, they all want to play in the W, they all want to have professional careers afterwards. And so, you know, the women’s game has changed that much that now – and I think a lot of it has to do with the success we have had.
But a lot of these kids just want to go to a player development place. That’s the one thing that we try to set ourselves apart. We feel like our skill development here, getting in the trenches with those players and helping them develop. And in, the proof is always in the statistics, right? You can go back look at Grace Berger as a freshman, sophomore, junior, and those are part of the recruiting conversation. There’s evidence here that how we do things works for our players.
On finding Shay Ciezki and Karoline Striplin in the transfer portal …
Moren: Obviously playing Penn State, you’re very familiar with Shay. Just the player, her ability to shoot it, but also, how much she valued his defense as well. We were able to play Tennessee on our schedule for the last couple of years. So being able to see Strip and watch her and prep against her, knowing that she was a five that (adds something) not only stature-wise, build-wise, experience-wise, but also can pick and pop. She has the ability to knock down shots from the outside. So they were two young ladies that certainly familiar with, but everybody else in the country wanted them as well.
It was recruiting them all over, just like we would freshmen trying to establish a relationship. It was like speed dating. That’s exactly what it was. We had to really get on them early and quick and establish a relationship. Karoline was a little bit easier. She was interested. I think she knew a lot about our style of play and how she would fit into our style of play. Shay was a little bit more of a challenge, just because kids like her, everyone wants to get a shooter, right? And so she was a little bit more challenging. But give (assistant coach) Ali Patberg credit, she stayed on her and built a really good relationship. With her, we made it really hard for her to say no.
On staff changes and (former Indiana player) Mackenzie Holmes being a graduate manager …
Moren: Let’s start from, not just Mackenzie, but we do have three graduate assistants that work with us. From a year ago, we added Mackenzie. Lauren Fields is another young lady that played at West Virginia, had a lot of success there. Madison Green has been with us, so she’s going into her second season. Isaiah Specks had been in one of those roles, but then we moved him into a player development role, so he’s been pretty significant this summer in working in that role for us from a player development standpoint.
And then we brought back (former Indiana player) Keyanna Warthen, who’s going to be another one of our coaches on the floor. You know, obviously, played for me, I feel like many years ago. But it’s pretty cool to have Key and Ali and Mack in the suite upstairs and on the floor that can speak to the culture, can speak to the atmosphere, to speak to what it’s like to be a student-athlete here, a basketball player, what we’re like, what I’m like, the expectations, and you know how they can speak to their experience.
And that goes a long way, especially with the parents. You know, when you have former players that want to come back and they want to be a part of this place, want to be a part of your program. I think that speaks volumes to things that we’ve been able to do right by our players.
On Moren being part of the USA Basketball staff and being a tinkerer and drawing up plays …
Moren: The great thing about being a part of USA Basketball is was always being able to spend time with Jose Fernandez, who’s (head coach) at South Florida and (head coach) Niele Ivey at Notre Dame, amongst other coaches that are part of the committee. There’s a lot of dinners after tryouts where you’re just talking ball, which is one of my favorite things to do.
For the last four or five years, we haven’t had to tinker. I try to just let our players do a lot of the things that we’d already know, especially when you have a young lady like Mackenzie, who you can do so much with and a kid like Sara Scalia that could shoot it, but also those other shooters that we brought in.
We know this, we’re going to play a little bit differently. Without Mackenzie, all of us have a tremendous amount of confidence in Lilly Meister. We really do. We think that she’s going to be special here for us the next couple seasons. It has forced us to go back and look at some film how do we want to play differently? I think one of the things you see when you have the experience of going to Spain, going to Colombia, going to Argentina. You know, a lot of these international teams, just the movement alone, body movement alone, how they how they play, how they pass, all of it. When you’re prepping for it, you think about things that you can bring back and can we do some of those things?
The difference between those guys over there, though, they do it from the time that they’re small to the time that they’re 17, 18, 19, 20-year-olds. So that’s the way they play. But it does open your eyes to a whole different kind of style of basketball.
Teri Moren said Indiana has tinkered with playing five-out with Lilly Meister having the ability to play in that way.
— Todd Aaron Golden (@ToddAaronGolden) September 18, 2024
For us, we’re we’ve tinkered all summer with some five out, some Princeton style, trying to take Lilly away from the low block and really allow our guards to just read and react to how they’re being guarded.
We’ve had a lot of fun with it. I think our kids are excited about it, they’re excited because it does give them a tremendous amount of freedom. And as I’ve always said to them, I’ll give you as much freedom as you want, as long as we’re taking great care of the ball, we value the ball, and our turnovers are low, and we’re taking good shots and shots that they make sense to our team. We’ve had a lot of great conversations upstairs in our office just about some things we want to do differently. Offensively and some things we’re going to tweak a little bit defensively.
On Sydney Parrish, her development, and being an Indiana native from the portal …
Moren: Syd has said it on more than one occasion how excited she is just to be back right in a system, in an environment where she found her love for this game. Restored it, I guess is a better way to put it. It’s been fun to have her back. Syd is a high I.Q. kid. Syd is a great communicator. She’s going to be fantastic when she’s done because this (the press room) is her space with media, being on the sidelines. It’s what she wants to do.
But to have her come back and for her to be an Indiana kid is great for us, great for our program. Syd is always about her team. You know, a couple years ago, I think back to Syd, when she first got here, and I had to bring her off the bench. I had to make a really difficult decision, because we really had six starters. Who are we going to bring off the bench to give us that extra punch? And it just happened to be Syd. She handled herself with so much maturity. It was all about just doing what we needed her to do. And then, Grace (Berger) goes down, and she gets into the lineup. She’s been great.
She represents this university and our program in such a great way. She’s become the face, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that she’s a native and she’s a Hoosier. And a lot of people know Syd. She gives and she gives back. As much as people want to give her attention and want to speak to Syd, take pictures with Syd, she’s the first one to put her arm around one of those little girls out there and spend some time with them. She’s been a great addition.
The next step for Yarden Garzon …
Moren: I don’t know that there is another step for her. The one thing about Yarden is Yarden has to continue to continue to be super aggressive for us offensively. She has to be able to use her length better defensively. She’s not as quick, and she knows this, but she does have long arms and high I.Q. She understands where she needs to be, when she needs to be there. But I do think, obviously there’s something she needs to improve on is defensively and being able to guard for us.
Offensively, the thing about Yarden, because she’s such a high I.Q. kid, and so skilled and talented. We were talking about tinkering with offenses – she’s a kid that you can put anywhere and she doesn’t need a lot of reps. Inside of our offense, even a year ago, when we wanted to kind of put her at the pinch. She’s not a kid that you’re going to have to spend two days straight of putting her there for her to understand what we’re trying to do. She naturally understands what we’re trying to do in certain actions, but she can make plays that may be off-script just because of her I.Q. She needs to be more of a scoring threat for us. We lost a lot with the graduation of Mackenzie and Sara. I don’t know what that percentage is, but they scored a lot of points for us. So her scoring is going to have to have to go up, but I want to see your defense improve too.
On having the example of (former Indiana guard) Grace Berger playing in the WNBA as an example for the team and from a recruiting standpoint …
Moren: It’s think it’s great for us. We’d like to see Grace play a little bit more. I think people that are on the outside, not on the inside, you know, think it’s pretty easy, and it’s never easy. We’re certainly proud of Grace. She deserved every bit of what she was able to accomplish here and the opportunity to be to be drafted, When the season is done here, she’s going to go over to Turkey and continue her professional career over there. So we’re super proud.
When she came back during the Olympic break, it was great to have her back in the in the gym, in front of those kids, where they’re watching, you know, a pro workout, just watching her pace that she goes at. And Isaiah (Specks) had an opportunity to work her out, and that was probably one of the highlights of the highlights of his career, was being able to work Grace Berger out.
You know we got another one in Mack. We were a little bit surprised that Sara Scalia wasn’t on the (WNBA draft) board as well because I felt like last year proved … if she wasn’t the best shooter in the country, I don’t know who was. She’s over in Italy, having a great pro career as well. We want there to be more. Guys that are either playing in the league or playing somewhere professionally.
On Lexus Bargesser changing her shot …
Moren: If you get to watch it, I think somebody leaked a photo of it, it has changed. It’s tweaked. It looks really good. I think she’s worked extremely hard. There’s a reason why we have a sign in Cook Hall that says ‘Your confidence can only come from your work.’ It looks good. Her being consistently ready to catch and shoot beyond the arc – she has to be able to hit one or two of those for us. She knows this.
A year ago, her player seemed to tend to not guard anybody. They had to pick somebody. You know, you had Mack in the middle. You had all those other great shooters on the outside. Sometimes you have to roll the dice. And it seemed like the teams were willing to roll the dice and maybe sit in the paint a little bit longer when they were guarding Lex. And she knew that. So she became a great cutter for us. She did whatever we needed her do, and I thought she had a great sophomore season, but now that she’s really worked hard this summer on that shot, I think that she’s going to be somebody that other opponents are going to guard, and that’s a good thing for us. We’re really, really proud of her, because she’s really worked hard and it looks good.
On Chloe Moore-McNeil …
Moren: Well, she knows this is it for her. As far as her confidence, Chloe, every year I feel like her confidence has grown a little bit more. She reminds me a lot that this is her last season and she wants to make the best out of it whatever that looks like. She wants to lead this basketball team. She’s a constant voice inside of practice and in our huddles. Whether’s that’s wisdom, whether that’s advice, whether that’s encouragement, you know, she provides it all. That’s what you would expect her to do being as old as she is. I think she’s excited for two reasons, excited that she gets to come back here and have the opportunity to play an extra year, and excited that her class load is not as hard.”
On Lilly Meister …
Moren: I mean two different kinds of kinds of players (compared to Mackenzie Holmes), but still productive. I think one of the things that Lilly can provide for us is protection at the rim. I think that she understands how to move laterally and protect the rim for us. She can block shots without fouling which is important. She’s a good athlete. I think she’s a tremendous passer from the pinch post area, she has a really good feel.
Anytime you’re playing the way we’re trying to play, with some of that Princeton style stuff, that five out, you have to have a five that can distribute it and has a good feel for the game. But then, she’s proven that she’s a steady score on the low block with her back to the basket. Someone has gotten a lot of reps doing that. She had to certainly play against Mackenzie every single day and so defensively, she got better having to do that day in and day out. But on the other side of that, she was also going against Mack offensively, so she had to learn to score in different ways.
We’re going to utilize her in different ways, not that she’s not going to be down there with her back to the basket, but she provides a lot. And the thing about Lilly is she’s a pleaser. She wants to do all the right things. She’s great teammate, super positive, very steady. She’s very steady in terms of how she sees the game, how she plays the game. Obviously they always want to do all the right things, but she’s not a kid who doesn’t get too low, doesn’t get too high. She just kind of stays right there in the middle. I love that.
