Mackenzie Holmes Can Expand Indiana Legacy, Women's Basketball Fan Base In Fifth Season

All-American forward Mackenzie Holmes returns for her fifth and final year at Indiana, with an eye on team accomplishments and expanding her game.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – With a fifth year of eligibility, Mackenzie Holmes can check off a list of historic accomplishments at Indiana and nationwide.

The 6-foot-3 forward earned First-team All-American and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors last year as she led the Hoosiers with 22.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game and shot 68 percent from the field. Those awards are just two of the 38 accolades she’s raked in as a Hoosier, along with shooting over 60 percent from the field all four years.

Holmes also has a good chance to become Indiana's all-time leading scorer. She needs 468 points to pass Tyra Buss, so she could average 15.6 points across 30 games and break the record.

“She is phenomenal,” Moren said Monday at Big Ten Media Days. “I always categorize her as kind of a throwback because of her feet, her hands, her quick hips. Her ability to score around the bucket is unusual at the rate she scores at.”

But perhaps more important to Holmes are team accomplishments. She helped Indiana reach the Elite Eight as a sophomore and Sweet 16 as a junior, then won Indiana’s first Big Ten title since 1983 as a senior. That season ended in heartbreak, though, as the Hoosiers were upset on their home court in the Round of 32 by Miami. Holmes said Monday at Big Ten Media Days that there is plenty to learn from that loss, but she doesn’t want it to define them.

The best way to avoid that is by going out in an emphatic way as a fifth-year senior. For Holmes, that doesn’t mean flaunting her personal achievements. Moren said Holmes is a true example of the “we” factor over the “me” factor that she preaches as a program pillar.

“She does not think she's bigger than the team,” Moren said. “She realizes that she needs the people around her in order to help her be successful, and that's always how it's been. And that started when Ali Patberg was in our program. Any time any of our kids have received accolades, awards, they're the first ones to tell you it wouldn't be possible without the help of their teammates, and Mack is just like that – the most humble, hardworking, best players in the country."

So what’s the next step for Holmes?

Moren said Holmes would probably say it’s becoming a consistent 3-point shooter, and that would be a scary sight for Indiana opponents. With a starting lineup that includes Sydney Parrish, Sara Scalia, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Yarden Garzon, Indiana could potentially trot out a starting five who are all 3-point shooting threats. It would create serious mismatches for opposing centers.

This isn’t the first time Moren and Holmes have discussed expanding this area of the All-American’s game. Holmes has shown brief glimpses as a shooter, going 8-for-30, or 26.7 percent, overall, and attempting 24 3-pointers across the last two seasons.

Moren said she sits down with all of her players every offseason to discuss individual development. With Holmes, 3-point shooting is always a theme.

“She's more than capable, it's just the confidence of being able to shoot more of them and be more consistent beyond the arc,” Moren said. “I think that's what will set her apart. We all know that she can score at a high rate around the basket, but now it becomes, can you become consistent also from beyond the arc?"

Moren views her coaching staff as risk-takers who are always willing to think outside the box. Whether she opens up the playbook to create these looks ultimately comes down to Holmes’ consistency, Moren said.

Holmes feels her coaches and teammates have confidence in her shooting ability, so it’s a matter of believing in herself and becoming more consistent. Reflecting on four years of being asked developmental questions in the preseason, Holmes recognizes that it’s now or never.

“I work on it every day. I'm in the gym working on it, so we'll see,” Holmes said laughing. “I just feel like I get this question every year, like, 'Maybe this will be the year.' I got one last chance, so…"

Indiana's Mackenzie Holmes (54) smiles after scoring during the second half of the Indiana versus Iowa women's basketball at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023 :: © Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

Despite Holmes’ accolades, impressive ability on both ends of the floor and status as the reigning Big Ten champion, she falls short in national popularity to Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. It was Clark, not Holmes, who was credited for growing the popularity of women’s basketball multiple times by opposing coaches on Monday.

Rutgers coach Coquese Washington joked that her daughter is a fan of Clark, “so I have to tell her, ‘You know, we're at Rutgers.’” Northwestern coach Joe McKeown quipped he was trying to figure out how to guard Clark on the flight to Minneapolis.

Clark led the No. 2 seed Hawkeyes to the national championship last year, but Iowa lost 102-85 to No. 3 seed LSU. Playing with flair and extensive 3-point shooting range, Clark averaged 27.8 points, 8.6 assists and 7.1 rebounds per game on her way to winning National Player of the Year.

Clark and Holmes are set to headline two Iowa-Indiana matchups this season, first on Jan. 13 in Iowa City and then on Feb. 22 in Bloomington. Iowa sold out last year’s game against Indiana, while Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall hosted a sellout crowd against Purdue, among various other raucous environments.

Fan and viewership growth have been great for women’s basketball in recent years, and Moren challenged even more people to take note of her All-American forward.

“I think in order for [Holmes] to have the popularity on a national stage space, we have to have people on a national stage or in that space that write about her,” Moren said. “By that, I spoke to a gentleman last year that asked me why Mackenzie should be considered one of the best players in the country, and it struck me that you guys in our local media have the luxury of being able to watch her night in and night out, but maybe some of the people on a national level don't either take the time or the effort to watch a kid like Mack and what makes her so special.

So my challenge is for, whether it's media, people that write about women's basketball, they need to do a better job of watching Mack, because I can tell her story, but to watch her is to understand what makes her one of the best players in the country."

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