Indiana won its season opener but Teri Moren wasn’t pleased with her team’s performance
A 22-point win to start the season may look good on paper, but Indiana coach Teri Moren wasn’t happy with her team’s play Monday night.
Indiana started their season in Assembly Hall with a comfortable 82-60 win against Brown University. Moren, however, was frustrated postgame with her team’s performance. According to Moren, IU’s struggles were all over the floor defensively and were uncharacteristic for a program she has built into a national power over the last 11 seasons.
While the Hoosiers seemed well-prepared to begin the season, their execution could have been better despite the victory.
“Very surprised, very surprised,” Moren said postgame. “This is a team that’s been very excited about the beginning of the season and their focus… I don’t want to give any excuses, not having players and that, I got to do a better job of getting their attention. And, you know, really, putting their feet to the fire, holding them more accountable.”
Indiana allowed 36 shots from behind the arc with 11 makes and turned over the ball 18 times against the Bears. According to Moren, there were defensive miscues and moments when Indiana switched when they shouldn’t have.
Yes, the Hoosiers won, but the Indiana coaching staff considered some mistakes unacceptable. Whether it was early-season jitters or the growing pains of the first game, these mistakes were unlike the Indiana team Moren saw coming into the first game of the year.
“We switched when we weren’t supposed to switch,” Moren explained. “We helped off a strong side when we weren’t supposed to help off a strong side. We did a lot of undisciplined things, which is not characteristic of our basketball team, so I’m disappointed that we were not more sound defensively. We were not a more disciplined team defensively.”
In the middle of all the frustration, Sydney Parrish and Karoline Striplin led the way for Indiana. Striplin, a transfer from Tennessee, scored 17 points off the bench, while Parrish had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Now in her fifth season of college basketball and third in Bloomington, Parrish echoed her coach’s sentiments.
“We are a lot better than what we showed today,” she said. “I think defensively, we weren’t great at times. We let up a bunch. They made 11 three-pointers total. They shot 36, but we can’t let up more than five a game, and playing Big Ten teams that’ll definitely hurt us down the stretch.”
The message was clear after the game: Take this game for what it was, watch the film and fix these issues before it gets deeper into the season.
Parrish mentioned it, while Moren declared it.
It’s the first game of the year, so Indiana can now take it as a moment of growth. They can understand where they are at and focus on getting better. But these errors must be addressed now instead of at the beginning of January when conference play begins.
Game one is over for the Hoosiers, but it gives Indiana a chance to look at themselves now that the season is officially underway.
“It bothers me that I have to go into halftime and have those conversations about being disciplined,” Moren said. “We left a shooter off the strong side. We never do that. We switched a guard to five ball screen. We never do that. So it’s those little things that, if you don’t nip it in the butt real quick, those are the things that are going to get your ass beat, and our kids know that.”
“If I don’t address it now, then I can’t wait down the road, right? I can’t wait till Thursday to address it and say, Gosh, I hope you guys do a lot better than you did the other night. I got to address it tomorrow morning.”
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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