Everything Teri Moren Said After Indiana's 82-60 Victory Over Brown

Teri Moren was not satisfied with Indiana's performance in the women's basketball opener on Monday.

Todd Golden | Nov 4, 2024

Indiana Head Coach Teri Moren instructs her team during the Indiana versus Brown women's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The No. 25 Indiana women's basketball team opened its regular season with an 82-60 victory over Brown at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Monday.

Despite the victory, Indiana coach Teri Moren was not pleased with the Hoosiers' performance in the game and she expressed as much during her postgame press conference.

Here's everything Moren had to say to the media after the game.

Opening statement ...

Moren: I'm glad we got our got a win to begin the season, but I'd be up here lying if I told you I was at all pleased with any of that tonight. We have game goals, as you guys know, throughout every game, and I thought we were lackluster getting out to - and again, I know they shot a lot of threes - but to give up, what was it? Eleven of those (3-point shots) that we gave up. Eleven of those unacceptable. We had some miscues defensively. We switched when we weren't supposed to switch. We helped off a strong side when we weren't supposed to help off the strong side. We just did a lot of undisciplined things that are not characteristic of our basketball team. So I'm disappointed that we were not more sound defensively. We were not a more disciplined team defensively.

I thought offensively in the first half in particular, got a little bit carried away with I was just taking too many outside shots when our clear advantage was on the inside. That's disappointing, because I think we're a smart team, and our advantage was clearly in the low post tonight. We started figuring that out a little bit in the second half. But it shouldn't take halftime to make that correction that we have an older team the way we have. Disappointed in our turnovers. Careless turnovers, whether that was just not focused, I don't know, but definitely not the way I wanted to open our season. A win, sure, but this performance tonight will not win you any Big Ten games.

On why Indiana's defense plateaued after a good start ...

Moren: I don't have any good reason. I can sit up here and try to make some stuff up. As I mentioned, I went back in after the first half, we tried to talk and I felt like we went rogue. I just told him, it's just the undisciplined piece. So then I gave them another goal in the second half of what we gave up? Yeah, we gave up 21 points, correct? So their game goal the rest of the way out was we needed to be under 45 points.

This is a team that is playing without two of their fours and fives that are really good. And so we suspected that they would play small with a lot of threes, but we're going to play teams that are going to play a five out that can all shoot it. And if we don't quickly start to figure some things out with our lack of urgency, which we did have tonight, then that's going to be a problem for us. There's going to be some really good film for our guys to be able to see themselves and what the slippage was and how it has to get corrected. And it has to be corrected really fast, because we got a really good Harvard team coming in here (Thursday) that plays similar to the way Brown plays.

Did Moren have any read that this performance could happen ...

Moren: Very surprised, very surprised. You know, this is a team that's been very excited about the beginning of the season. We're without a couple of our guards right now. You know, with (Lenee) Beaumont and Lex (Lexus Bargesser), and Lex is such a great defender. We miss her. But I don't want to give any excuses to not having players. I got to do a better job of getting their attention.

We really have to put their feet to the fire, holding them more accountable. We do a lot of really good things in practice against our (practice) squad. We've had a lot of really good moments where we've gotten the stops and they're hard to guard, they're guys and they're athletic and they're quicker than we are. I've liked a lot of things that just didn't transfer into the game tonight.

I thought Chloe (Moore-McNeil) was lethargic, didn't have much energy at the point. She's our leader. She has to be better. Now there were some bright spots and we'll find them. Syd (Parrish) had a couple moments. Yarden (Garzon) had a couple moments. Shay (Ciezki) just placed hard. Lilly (Meister), you know, efficient. (Karoline Striplin) came in, didn't play great against in our exhibition game and played really well tonight. So that was good to see. You guys know me well enough to know that, yes, I'm ticked off at the turnovers, but I'm more concerned right now about us getting their identity. We're a defensive minded team. We did not display that tonight and that that really bothers me.

How do these problems get fixed ...

Moren: Just what I said, They're going to have to watch film, but we have to do a better job. I have to do a better job, along with our staff, of making sure that how we do things, the way we do them, when we do them, doing them correctly, doing them right, with consistency, day in and day out of practice, that will will find you time. It's like the old Coach (Bob) Knight comment, the best way sometimes is they got to sit next to you to start to figure some things out. And if we have to do that, we'll do that because I have to get their attention somehow.

On isolation defense and keeping things away from the middle of the court ...

Moren: That's how we're going to try to play. We went into the season with a defensive plan of how we want to guard wing ball screens, high ball screens, and we've been repping like crazy on some iso, some of that. So we got to get better at it. There's no doubt. But it's something that we feel confident in being able to do.

On Moren's postgame frustration ...

Moren: I have a tremendous amount of patience. And trust me, when I tell you, I have, before I came in here, I thought of all those things, right? It's the first game. There's still butterflies for some of these guys. But, you know, I just it's just unacceptable to me that we gave up 11 threes. It just is. So that bothers me. It bothers me that we don't have more pride. It bothers me that I have to go into halftime and have those conversations about being undisciplined. We left a shooter off the strong side. We never do that. We switched guard to five ball screen. We never do that. So it's those little things that, if you don't nip it in the bud real quick, those are the things that are going to get your ass beat and our kids know that. And if I don't address it now, then I can't wait down the road, right? I can't wait till Thursday to address it and say, 'Gosh, I hope you guys do a lot better than you did the other night.' I I got to address it tomorrow morning when we show back up for a film.

On substituting early ...

Moren: I think we feel really comfortable with our substitution. Henna (Sandvik) has been terrific. Strip has been terrific. As I mentioned, we're a little bit short in the guard spot right now, without Beaumont and Lex. Our rotation has to be, we have to be pretty mindful of what that's going to look like. We've got to make sure we have point guards out there on the floor at all times. And the great thing is that Shay, Chloe and Yarden can give us minutes. We got to keep them out of foul trouble. They got to keep them healthy. We played Jules (LaMendola) even a little bit at the guard spot today. We did that the other night as well. So we're trying to steal some minutes from Julianna, as well being kind of going back from the three to the four. We're playing a lot of kids right now.

Indiana's Sydney Parrish (33) shoots a three-pointer during the Indiana versus Brown women's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On having a veteran like Sydney Parrish to fall back on ...

Moren: Really important. Really important that your veterans become the voice in those those moments ... in those time outs. A player-led team is far better than a coach-led team. When you have players like Syd, and usually Chloe, and Yarden at times. Shay has a great voice, they need to be having those conversations before I get to the timeout, right? They need to be holding each other accountable, wanting individually to play with greater pride, collectively, wanting to be wanting to play with greater pride. They need to be coaching each other up.

On Shay Ciezki and contributing despite struggling with her shot ...

Moren: I don't say anything to any of those kids that are going to come in and do more than what's required and she's one of those kids. Shay lives in the gym. She does. And so I have every ounce of faith in all of those kids that that are going to take those shots, because they work on them every single day and they work on them outside of practice time. And so the only problem I would have is if those kids didn't work on those shots, but they do, that's where their confidence comes from. We've always talked about that your work is where it comes from. You just try to keep pouring into it that those are good shots.

But going back to the threes that we were taking, on those nights if your shots not falling, she found different ways to score the ball. But I'm going to go back to what I said earlier, our advantage was on the inside tonight. We needed to pound that thing in more so than take a number of outside shots that we took. And as I told him, there's going to be some nights where our advantage is not on the inside. But tonight? We should be as smart enough ball team to understand that we need to keep going inside.

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