What Teri Moren Said After Indiana Beat Southern Indiana 67-63

Teri Moren's words to the media after Indiana rallied past Southern Indiana at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday.

Todd Golden | Dec 5, 2024

Indiana Head Coach Teri Moren watches during the Indiana versus Southern Indiana women's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Teri Moren had some choice words for her team at halftime during Indiana's women's basketball game against Southern Indiana on Tuesday. At the time, Indiana trailed by 13, but the Hoosiers rallied for a 67-63 victory on Wednesday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

The media did not get to hear Moren's specific words to her team at halftime, of course, but Moren did go into what was discussed at halftime and several other topics as she addressed the media after the game.

Here's what Moren had to say:

Opening statement ...

Moren: First of all, what a great team Southern Indiana is. I've known Rick (Stein, Southern Indiana coach) forever, from back in my U Indy days, he's been there that long, and he's done a great job of building that program. I'm very impressed with his team, with his kids, how hard they played, and we're lucky to get out of here. It was a tale of two different shooting performances that we had the other night. Was hard to get anything going offensively. Shots weren't falling, but I thought that in the in the third quarter in particular, you know, (Indiana) jumped into their man and we did some really good things offensively, trying to keep going, trying to get downhill a little bit, but also hit Yarden (Garzon) on a few of our actions. And then Shay (Ciezki) came in, and was big in the corner for us there with 15 seconds to go on the shot clock to give us a little bit more breathing room. Didn't shoot it well tonight, but really proud of our kids, how they fought, how they fought back. And you know, this is a good win for us.

On the players mentioning that Moren had a pointed halftime message for the team ...

Moren: I was obviously disappointed in our effort. I didn't think we were focused. I didn't think we were locked in to executing the game plan at the level we needed to. I didn't think we fought. I didn't think we were playing with much pride, all things that they know that they have to do in order to win ball games. Remind them that nobody cares, right? When teams come in here to the Hall, they have a different sense of urgency, excitement, energy, and particularly when you're playing against teams ... some of those kids are from Indiana, right? We tried to warn them about that. They played at Louisville, so playing in front of a crowd, big stage, they're not gonna blink. And you know, that was how we set the stage on the table form today. These guys are not they're not afraid of you guys. We just didn't respond the way I thought we would in the first half.

And so, I had to get in them pretty good and question whether or not they were were ready to fight in the second half. That's guard better, that's fight harder, that's try a little harder. Offensively, there were times, you know, obviously we got back in the game and won the game. We had some of those good moments, but not enough clean defensive stops in my opinion. So just an area that we got to figure out how we can continue to get better. Hopefully we will.

I was disappointed in our post play. I thought Lilly (Meister) and Strip (Karoline Striplin) were just okay. Offensively, defensively. I think about some of the post players that we're going to see in the Big (Ten) right? Not to take anything away from those guys at USI, they were good, but we're going to play against some of the very best post players in the country and we got to be able to respond much better. And we got to help them as a staff. We got to figure out how we can help them guard better.

On whether there's a message for the team that there's other ways to win when shots aren't falling ...

Moren: Since I arrived at Indiana, those first couple years where offensively it was a struggle, right? I'm old school. I believe that you hang the hat on the defensive side of the ball. If it's low scoring, it's low scoring. You still give yourself a chance if you can execute the defensive plan. Be in rotations. Guard better. Guard one on one. Rebound. Don't give up direct drives. Play together. Everybody guards the ball. I mean, that's always been our message. All five of you have to be connected. You have to help each other. And we won a lot of ball games early on because of our defense. We're playing a day and age where everybody wants to see high scoring. And trust me, I want to score too. I get it. You have to in order to win the game. But I don't want to go away from how we built this thing, and it's always been, we've been a very difficult team to play against, because we really try to take what you want to do offensively away. And we're not there yet. We still have to work and continue to grow with this group. I guess a silver lining is that they did fight their way back into the game. They did it. They had to get stops. They also had to score and chip away at the lead. But ultimately, they had to get stops. And they were able to do that. Just got enough of them to sneak out of here with a win.

On Julianna LaMendola's health ...

Moren: She's having some intestinal stomach problems, right? She wasn't feeling very well, but it should be fine.

On frustration over some of the shot selection (citing confusion between Ciezki and Moore-McNeil on a single play) and whether it affects other things ...

Moren: It's poor decisions on our part. I'll take the responsibility for that because I have to make sure that in those situations, in those scenarios, when the shot clock is running down, what a good shot looks like for us. Chloe knows better. We either want to attack at the rim, try to get something at the rim, whether that's a layup and or a foul, and not settle for a step back ... we hope it goes in kind of shot. I have to take responsibility for that. Shay and Chloe, they're still trying to work together, because there's times when we put Chloe at the point, there's times that we put Shay at the point. And not that they're confused, but we look confused in that moment, which we certainly did. And you know, it's a great moment that we'll have in film to be able to go back and talk about, 'Look in these, these scenarios, it happens often where the shot clocks running down. What can we jump into that will at least give us a high percentage shot or a shot that we can live with.' Instead of looking like we had no plan, and that's kind of what we look like.

On whether Indiana turnovers were addressed after the Hoosiers had six in the first quarter only to have just six more for the rest of the game ...

Moren: Not so much. There was so much to address to be honest with you, that turnovers were the least thing on my my list when I was going into timeouts. It was just trying to to get them to guard so much better. Be more engaged in what we were trying to do. When you don't shoot the ball well and you don't see those things going in, it's hard. I'll probably go back after I watch it, and maybe a lot of the shots we got just didn't go down. And there's probably a handful that I'll be like, 'This is a bad shot. This is not a good shot. This is not a good shot.' We want to stay right under 12 (turnovers). The other night we were able to do that. But, yeah, I didn't address it as much as I just there was other things I needed to address.

On what was done to unlock Southern Indiana's half-court defense ...

Moren: When they went to man (defense) we were able to jump into some of our actions. We just felt like after we got back from the Bahamas, the ball was sticking too much. And so we're trying to give them a couple new actions that we can run and specifically put the ball in certain people's hands. And often times that was Yarden and sometimes it was Chloe to come off dribble handoffs and whatnot. First of all, we started getting stops, but then we started just chipping away. Henna (Sandvik) comes in there and knocks down a big three for us in that stretch as well. Finally, I think Yarden finally found a three. We just had to chip away. And in some of the stuff offensively that we have been working on was really good to us.

They keep you off balance by showing the zone going back to the man. And so it's a guessing game, right? Usually in their 2-2-1 (zone), 90% of time they're going to fall back into that zone. But when they they call off the press, then it's a guessing game of they're going to come out of a time out or a dead ball into that man. And so we got to do a better job of recognizing. I had that conversation with Chloe and Shay, we have to do a better job when we play teams that we know will play man and zone. I was pleased with what we have been working on and the things that worked tonight for us.

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