COLUMBIA, S.C. – For the seventh time, Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren navigated a path to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Indiana defeated Utah 76-68 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Colonial Life Arena in the Columbia sub-regional.
Moren has never failed to make the second round of the NCAA Tournament when Indiana has qualified under her watch.
Moren spoke to the media after the victory. Here’s everything she had to say on Friday.
Opening statement …
Teri Moren: First of all, I’m so proud to represent these guys. Really proud of them, how hard they played.
First of all, I want to congratulate Utah. What a great team. They are – they pose so many challenges for you defensively. They have a bunch of experience and veteran players, and they’re very, very impressive. They’re impressive, and they are hard to prepare for. And we absolutely knew that this was going to be a dogfight, and just really proud of our team, how they fought defensively today.
You know, pleased with – you know, all the kids that got in and played minutes for us, because you can look at all the kids that five of them were in double-digit scoring, but then I think about Henna (Sandvik) coming in, and we’re down a four player, and we can move her around and we can move Yarden around. And then Lilly Mesiter coming in, and she and Strip (Karoline Striplin) did such a great job of being there for one another. When Strip went out, Lilly impacted the game; and then when Lilly went out, Strip did the same.So really happy with our guard play. I thought Chloe (Moore-McNeil) and Shay (Ciezki) and Yarden (Garzon) were, once again, terrific in being able able to help us play fast and play organized.
Syd Parrish finally found her shot there in the second half as well for us. And so a lot of different people, Lexi Bargesser came in, gave us great minutes, again, defensively.
So it takes everybody, and our group knows that. But I thought transition defense we were superb today. We were really worried about them in transition. Didn’t want to give up any open threes. Didn’t feel like we did that.
A lot of good things. Some of these things never show up in here (Moren held up a stat sheet). Our heart and our effort and our toughness won us this game today. So just, again, really proud of our staff, really proud of our players.On confidence winning away from Bloomington …
Moren: I think tournament play for this group, and I think Chloe didn’t talk about it probably as much as she should have in terms of we understand that if we don’t come in and play well, this could be the last game. And so I think there’s a different level of urgency, you know, when you’re playing in the NCAA Tournament. And I think, again, there’s excitement that surrounds it, too.
We have a veteran team led by Chloe, led by Syd. And so I think some of those other pieces, Yarden, Shay, Lilly, you know, the surrounding cast, they want those seniors to go out — Strip — in the right way. And so, yes, you might categorize this as a team that plays better in March, but I think the reason why we came out the way we did, the toughness that we showed today, the resilience, all of it, had more to do with the fact that the surrounding cast wanted Strip and Chloe and Syd to win this game.So really happy with our guard play. I thought Chloe (Moore-McNeil) and Shay (Ciezki) and Yarden (Garzon) were, once again, terrific in being able able to help us play fast and play organized.
Syd Parrish finally found her shot there in the second half as well for us. And so a lot of different people, Lexi Bargesser came in, gave us great minutes, again, defensively.
So it takes everybody, and our group knows that. But I thought transition defense we were superb today. We were really worried about them in transition. Didn’t want to give up any open threes. Didn’t feel like we did that.
A lot of good things. Some of these things never show up in here (Moren held up a stat sheet). Our heart and our effort and our toughness won us this game today. So just, again, really proud of our staff, really proud of our players.On Shay Ciezki …
Moren: She’s fit in perfectly. That’s why we recruited her. That’s why we brought her to Indiana, because we felt like she’s a piece that we needed, we had to have. And so I think her transition to us and playing in our system, both offensively and defensively, has really been quite seamless.
Now, she might disagree, but I do think she’s become a better defender for us, but we know this about Shay. She’s outstanding. The great thing about Shay is she is a multi-dimensional point guard, meaning she can play off the ball; she can play with the ball in her hands. She is shifty when the ball is in her hand, has a high IQ, but also can put a lot of pressure on you behind the arc, and that’s why we brought her to Indiana, because she can do all those things for us.On winning every year Indiana has won in the tournament …
Moren: Well, I say this. It always goes back to the players, the players that are in your program, that are in your system, and then I’ve had fantastic staff. Some of them have moved on to become head coaches at other institutions.
But the standards never change, right? They always stay the same, what we’re going to be about, what matters to us, and it’s our job to find the kids that fit us, right? And fit our program, fit our culture. And then once we feel like it’s a great fit, then there are standards that we have, and we never lower the standards, no matter who you are; from the best player to the last person on the bench that might not see time, they’re held to the very same standard.
And so we talk a lot about that, and that’s kind of who we’ve morphed into. As I always say, it’s not easy to play at Indiana because of sort of the demands of the work piece, but also in our preparation and what it requires to be successful.
On Indiana’s second-half shooting …
Moren: You know, again, I trust — we trust this group to know what a good shot is for us. It’s been a long season, and so we’ve had a lot of reps at understanding what a good shot looks like for us. And so it’s trusting that they’re going to make the right play, they’re going to make — take the right shot. They know what a good shot looks like for us. They take what the defense gives them.
You know, we do a lot inside of all those timeouts trying to help them with what we see in hopes that they can get on the floor and take advantage of some of those looks that may be there that maybe they’re not seeing at the time.
