Indiana Women's Basketball: Sydney Parrish Says She Made the Right Decision

Junior guard Sydney Parrish from Fishers, Ind. never got to cut down a net while playing with Oregon for two seasons. Now, Parrish is a starter for the Hoosiers and has a Big Ten regular season title on her resume. It's good to be back home.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana women's basketball junior guard Sydney Parrish is the only Indiana native on the team, and she's happy to be home.

The 6-foot-2-inch guard spent her first two seasons at Oregon, choosing to leave her Fishers, Ind. home. The 2020 Indiana Miss Basketball did well as a Duck as she averaged six points, 2.7 rebounds and finished 10th in three-point field goals made in the Pac-12 last season.

Double those stats, and you get the new and improved version of Parrish at Indiana. She worked her way up to the starting five and now averages 12.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and shoots 36.2 percent from three.

Her numbers plus those of her veteran teammates around her led them to their first Big Ten regular season title since 1983 after No. 2 Indiana beat Purdue 83-60 on Sunday.

"I clearly made the right decision, you know, to come back home," Parrish said. "I went two years and was never able to climb up on a ladder and cut down a piece. It felt really special because I knew this is home, so it was a really good, good feeling."

Part of something special 🤍❤️ pic.twitter.com/r3spFX6pKy

— syd parrish (@sydney_parrish) February 19, 2023

The beauty about coming back home is family is close enough to come watch. Parrish's grandparents go to every home game to cheer on their No. 33. After the net cutting Sunday, Parrish first greeted her parents and then found her grandparents waiting for her hug.

"Obviously my grandpa started crying," Parrish said. "He cries at a lot of things so he was just proud, and it just means a lot. 

"This hat and net are probably going to end up in their house somewhere right next to the state championship hat that I got my junior year, so you know they're a big part of why I'm here, and it's really special to be able to share it with them."

The Hoosiers have one more regular season task at hand in facing No. 6 Iowa in Iowa City on Sunday. After that, it's Big Ten Tournament time in Minneapolis, Minn. before the Hoosiers will look to make another deep NCAA tournament run.

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