The start of the season for Indiana women's basketball has been a rocky roller coaster thus far. After a season-opening win over Brown, the Hoosiers dropped back-to-back games. Indiana hadn’t started the season 1-3 since 2005, so head coach Teri Moren and the Indiana squad had to bounce back.
Indiana has had trouble finding its offensive and defensive identity, but fifth-year guard Chloe Moore-McNeil stepped up to lead the Hoosiers on Sunday afternoon. In the first three games, Moore-McNeil shot 33% from the field while averaging 6.3 points. She has held herself accountable these past games, saying that she needs to be better for her team.
Against No. 24 Stanford, she did just that, helping lead Indiana to a 79-66 win.
“When Chloe shoots the ball the way she does or did today, and she's aggressive like she was today, we look like a whole different basketball team,” Moren said.
Moore-McNeil led all scorers with 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting. She also played aggressively on defense, providing a spark for the Hoosiers with four steals. The Hoosiers controlled the pace for all 40 minutes, and a large factor in that was Moore-McNeil's control on the court. As the glue of the team and co-captain alongside another graduate guard, Sydney Parrish, she proved that she could lead this team to win in big games.
Heading into the matchup, Indiana had struggled defending the perimeter, allowing opponents to make 8.3 3-pointers per game. The Cardinal led the nation in 3-point percentage before the game at 51% and averaged 12.5 3-pointers per game. It was a big task for Indiana, but they succeeded more than expected.
Indiana’s defense held the Cardinal to shoot 18.2% from beyond the arc, only making 2 of 11. Junior forward Lilly Meister's foul trouble early in the second half may have been a large factor, forcing them to play small ball but more aggressively from the perimeter.
However, the officials made it hard for both teams to play as there were constant whistles on what seemed like every possession and 47 fouls combined. At one point a fan yelled from the crowd, “it’s basketball, not whistle ball!”
When considering who impacted the game most, different unsung heroes can come to mind. But for Moren, it was clear who she was.
“My MVP tonight from the defensive side of the ball was Jules (LaMendola),” Moren said. “She came in and did a great job on No. 3 (Nunu Agara). Just giving her some resistance, she took a big charge down in the second half.”
While LaMendola did impact the Hoosiers’ defense, the glue on the court also came from junior guard Henna Sandvik. When Miester came out in foul trouble, Sandvik played the forward position and forced the Stanford offense to use up the shot clock on most possessions.
At the beginning of the game, the Indiana defense had difficulty getting through Stanford’s pick-and-drop. During the first quarter, junior guard Shay Ciezki was left in the paint with Cardinal forwards whenever Stanford ran it. However, as the game progressed, the Hoosiers figured out how to get through the screen to avoid the buckets in the paint.
It was a breakout game for Ciezki, who was recruited with the stereotype of being known as a sharpshooter. During the first three games, she has had a rough start on offense. She finally found her rhythm, scoring 19 points and going 2-for-3 from 3-point range. Along with Ciezki, junior guard Yarden Garzon also was efficient, scoring 18 points with four 3-pointers.
With the Hoosiers offense looking the way they looked on paper in the off-season, they looked like a completely different team from the first three games. Indiana averaged 20.3 turnovers per game and only turned the ball over 11 times against Stanford.
Clearly, this team is done with the losing and hated it.
“We wanted to win. Losing sucks,” Garzon said. “We wanted to win, like everybody on the team. We all wanted to do everything in our ability to win this game and come out with good energy. Most of us know how it felt at Stanford last year and didn't want to feel it again, especially not after (the loss to) Butler. We needed that win, and I feel like everybody knew that, and we did it.”
Now, with the Hoosiers sitting at 2-2 on the season, they will head to Paradise Island, Bahamas, for the Battle 4 Atlantis during the Thanksgiving holiday. To begin the tournament, Indiana will face off against Columbia on Saturday, Nov. 23 at 1:30 p.m. ET. Baylor and Southern Mississippi will be waiting on the other side of the bracket to face the winner or loser.
