Indiana head coach Teri Moren and her staff had difficulty recruiting junior guard Shay Ciezki out of the transfer portal. As soon as they heard the Penn State Nittany Lion was switching schools, Moren knew she needed to pursue her. They did so successfully and quickly learned that Ciezki is a gym rat and a “bulldog,” as Moren said before the season.
Ciezki proved she has that “dog” mentality in the 73-65 win over No. 18 Baylor, where she scored 34 points.
“It was Shay’s day. Today was her time to shine,” Moren said.
It was Indiana’s second time this season facing a ranked opponent. Plus, the team had just under 24 hours to prepare for the Bears after they beat Columbia the day before in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
“I give tons of credit to our players. Just the resilience, the toughness that they displayed today I'm really proud of them and happy for them,” Moren said.
The Hoosiers came out hot against the Bears, getting a 17-2 lead early on. But it wasn't an easy matchup for Indiana, as Baylor was coming off a 101-point outing the day before, during which they made 15 3-pointers. While Baylor couldn't miss in the game before, they couldn't get a bucket in the first quarter against the Hoosiers' defense.
Indiana made Baylor look uncomfortable on the court. The Hoosiers ensured no second chances, forced turnovers, got in position to draw easy fouls, and picked apart the defense to play the inside-out game. But that was just in the first quarter. The first quarter was the best the Hoosiers have looked all season long, building a 27-18 lead at the end of the frame.
Then, the second quarter came along. Indiana put some of Baylor's best post players in foul trouble early on, limiting their minutes, but the Bears reminded everyone that they could shoot lights out from deep. Senior guard Yaya Felder showed that, draining five 3’s to go into her 20-point performance.
Suddenly, the Hoosiers’ control on the floor was slipping away, and Baylor was changing the pace. Then Indiana fan favorite graduate student guard Sydney Parrish went down. Parrish collided with junior forward Kyla Abraham, and her leg got tangled awkwardly, so she had to be carried off the floor. Later in the game, Parrish came out of the locker room on crutches and an ice pack on her left knee; Moren had no update post-game.
The absence of Parrish put the Hoosiers out of sync and allowed Baylor to go on a 7-0 run to end the half, while Indiana went on a two-and-a-half-minute scoring drought. It was a four-point game heading into halftime, with Baylor back into the fight.
It was a next-man-up mentality for Indiana, and sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola started the second half by replacing Parrish. Also notable was the return of junior guard Lexus Bargesser, who returned the game prior but saw the court for 26 minutes, impacting the Hoosiers significantly on both ends with five points and three assists.
Yet Baylor began playing Indiana’s game to start the second half by pushing the tempo and drawing fouls in the paint, which put some of the Hoosiers players into foul trouble early on. The Bears began to feast off the offensive boards, grabbing a total of 16 with eight second-chance points.
Junior forward Lilly Meister was challenged to play against senior forward Aaronette Vonleh (younger sister of former IU men’s basketball standout Noah) and Abraham from Baylor, who were both physically and mentally tough throughout the game, leaving Meister on the floor most of the time she faced them. Meister finished the game with seven points and five rebounds.
Down the stretch, it was a back-and-forth game, but the Hoosiers' team basketball, playmaking ability along with Ciezki’s performance, ultimately were the deciding factors.
Starting off with the team basketball by the Hoosiers, the guards were playing the inside-out game extremely well against the Bears' defense. Either graduate student guard Chloe Moore-McNeil or Ciezki would bring the ball themselves into the paint to then find the open forward who was cutting wide open as they were being double-teamed. This resulted in 32 points in the paint for the Hoosiers.
In addition to their playmaking offense, they forced 18 turnovers from the Bears. The Hoosiers were forcing Baylor to use up all of the time on the shot clock and most of the time finding a way to pick their pocket and convert it into fast-break points.
Ciezki also had a hard matchup with a well-known aggressive defender in junior guard Darianna Littlepage-Buggs. Except Ciezki was picking apart Littlepage-Buggs in every way possible. The Bears defense would crowd Ciezki at the perimeter, and then after her first step she would have her defender beat and have an easy finish at the rim. In addition to this all she had Littlepage-Buggs in foul trouble late in the game and forced her to foul out in the final moments after a drive to the basket with an and-one.
“She has some wiggle to her and she's able to use the dribble and hesitations to her advantage,” Moren said. “She's aggressive and she loves the game, she's passionate about the game and she played like that with a tremendous amount of passion.”
It was Ciezki's first 20-plus performance in the cream and crimson and definitely a game that she won't forget for a long time.
During the fourth quarter, while Baylor attempted to make a run to get back into the game, the Hoosier defense did not allow it to happen. Indiana consistently crashed the paint with double teams to overwhelm the Bears' offense and drew offensive fouls to make the Baylor offense nonexistent toward the end of the game.
This is now the second Big Ten school that Baylor has lost to so far this season, with the first being Oregon. While Indiana had a rough two-game losing stretch, they now have two wins against ranked opponents under their belts and a trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game on Monday against the winner of Sunday’s North Carolina-Villanova game.
“I don’t think we have any doubt that we weren't going to win these games,” Ciezki said. “We're going to…keep pushing, have a championship game tomorrow, and win that one. But that’s always our mentality. We worked hard tonight, we never backed down, and we’re just a gritty team.”
