What Teri Moren Said After Indiana Lost To No. 2 USC In Big Ten Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren spoke to the media after the Hoosiers were eliminated from the Big Ten Tournament in an 84-79 loss to Southern California, the Big Ten regular season champion and second-ranked team in the nation.

Here is what Moren had to say to the media after the defeat.

Opening statement …

Teri Moren: I’m extremely proud of our team today. I thought that they battled for 40 minutes. We asked them to do a lot defensively, change up some coverages and whatnot throughout. I thought that their focus was really good.

Once again, we put JuJu on the free-throw line way too much. The 11 offensive rebounds really, really hurt us, I thought, because they were timely, and then the back-to-back 3s — I think we pulled within two — were back breakers for us.

Really proud of our group. I know this about these guys. They can play with anybody in the country, and we’re disappointed that we don’t get to play another day, but as a staff, we’re really happy, not — we’re not — we’re disappointed that we lost, but I’m really happy with our effort and our toughness today.

On Sydney Parrish fouling out relatively early in the fourth quarter …

Moren: Again, I trust Syd, just like I trust Yarden, those seniors and Chloe that have been doing it a long time to get in there and just understand that they can’t pick up any of those cheap fouls.

The one that fouled her out was — you just can’t do that. You just can’t do that. She knows that. She knows how important she is to have on the floor. I know that she’s disappointed. Syd’s a smart kid. She knows that her being able to stay on the floor was going to be really important for us.

Again, Lex had to come in and battle in spite of not having Syd. We were right there. It’s just we came down, and like I said, we had a coverage. We were trying to — I think it was blitz JuJu, and they got the ball out of it, she got the ball out of it and swung it to the corner, and 55 hits the first 3. Then the second 3 was just JuJu rising above, over Lex, and sticking the shot, which is hard to do.

Again, going into March, it’s a hard lesson, but Syd will understand that she needs to be able to stay on the floor.

On trying to defend USC’s JuJu Watkins …

Moren: You were talking about her defensively or her offense? Again, Kennedy Smith, I think, is such a great defender for a freshman. We can talk about JuJu defensively. It’s amazing how often — what I think she does such a good job of being able to get to the free-throw line.

We had some timely turnovers, there’s no doubt about it. Whether it was Kennedy, whether it was JuJu making a play on the ball, I’d have to go back and look, but I think where JuJu really puts pressure on you, how she kind of leans into that shot, right? We’re telling Chloe to be vertical, show your hands, and I thought Chloe picked up two kind of cheap ones with JuJu being able to do that.

Nonetheless, she gets fouled 11 times, and I don’t think anybody else was close to that. I think one of the recipes in trying to beat a really good USC team is keeping her especially off the free-throw line.

Is Indiana where it needs to be going into the NCAA Tournament …

Moren: I think I said it, we’ve had some really good moments where we played good basketball prior to coming to Indy. I thought we played really well yesterday against Oregon. Certainly I thought our fight was there today against USC.

Again, it should give us great confidence. We can take a couple days here to kind of catch our breath and get off our feet. It’s been a long season. Again, we can argue ACC, SEC, I think the Big Ten is just so good from top to bottom. It’s been a grind of a season for all of us.

I think we’re looking forward to maybe taking a couple days here, but once we get back to Bloomington and we get back together, it’s going to be another week before we know what’s going to happen, who we’re going to play, and whatnot.

The great thing about being where we are is that we know that there’s another tournament that we’re going to be able to go in and play in, and probably for our kids, they’re probably most excited about the opponent hopefully that we’ll have we haven’t seen yet. It will be a fresh, new opponent for us. I think there will be a whole new level of excitement.

Any time March Madness gets here and you wait for Monday and the selection show and whatnot. But, yeah, I think we’ll take a lot of confidence from what we’ve been able to do the last two days.

I’m going to tell you, we’re disappointed. Yarden said it. Our plan was to come in here, and we wanted to be playing on Sunday.

Is Moren positive Indiana will be in the NCAA Tournament …

Moren: Yeah, there’s no doubt.

On comparing and contrasting the two games against USC this season …

Moren: Again, you have to go back, and I’ll have to watch, like I said in my opening statement. The 11 offensive rebounds hurt us, the back to back. They were timely 3s that hurt us today. We were right there. And without a starter on the floor.

So a lot of really good takeaways from yesterday, but a lot of good takeaways from today. There’s always things that you can improve and get better. We’ll do that once we get back to Bloomington and get a look at both films and compare and contrast, what went well and what didn’t.

What is the case that Indiana can present to the NCAA Tournament committee in terms of seeding and general strengths of the team …

Moren: At the beginning of the season we were certainly without — going into the season, Lenée Beaumont was going to be a big part of what we were going to be able to count on for us. She goes down with a knee injury in the summer, and we make the decision she’s going to take the year off and not be available.

Then we go in and we don’t have Lexy Bargesser at the beginning of the season as well because she’s nursing a foot injury. We played without her for a majority of the first half of nonconference.

I think the injuries played a part in it. Any time you lose a kid like — an All-American like McKenzie and a great shooter like Sarah, and you bring in new players like Shay and Strip, it’s going to take time for your team to learn how to gel and learn to play with each other.

Again, going down to the Bahamas, Columbia is an excellent team out of the Ivy League. Then we turn around right the next day and beat a good Baylor team. They’re top 20 in the country right now. Syd goes down. We have another injury. Then come up short against — real short against North Carolina for a number of reasons.

Then we have to play a majority, another string of games without a starter like Syd Parrish, and then we get her back. We are able to get some really good wins, whether it was Nebraska at home, some of those on the road that maybe we fell short on. We come home, we play UCLA, both UCLA and USC really close, come up short.

Then turn around, Nebraska, think about it, Ohio State, play excellent. Then finish off the season with a great win at Purdue but then come in here beat Oregon, who we had lost to.

Are we gelling at the right time? We knew the year was going to kind of be — there was going to be ebbs and flows in it, but again, we’ve got a veteran team. We’ve got an experienced team. We’ve had some tough luck throughout. We’ve had some challenges. Whether it was some on the floor, some off the floor and some just things that aren’t really basketball related but can disrupt what our normal is.

There’s not even a case to be made. Based on what we’ve been able to do, the history the last ten years, with our experience. I’m not worried about trying to make a case. Our team deserves to be in the field.

On going on the road in the NCAA Tournament …

Moren: It will be — we’re going to miss being at home. We’re going to miss — the last two years we’ve been the fortunate ones to be able to host some of those first rounds.

The fact that, again, it’s March Madness, and wherever they send us, we’re going to go, and we’re going to put our best foot forward. It might be different, but that’s sometimes not a bad thing. Just the fact that we’re going to, like I said, take a couple days off, and we can look forward to the next tournament. That’s the most important thing.

Who we play, where we go really don’t matter. We know that the next tournament is kind of similar to this. If you don’t win, you’re done, right? I feel really good about our group as far as competitive energy level, experience, all of it. We’ll be ready.

On defending both JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen at the same time …

Moren: They’re challenging. Not to take — I want to say this in the right way, but we’ve got a lot of teams that have been really challenging all year long. Both JuJu and Kiki are terrific, and we’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for USC and Lindsay, their staff and their players.

They’re going to represent, just like we will, the Big Ten in their great way here in the next couple of weeks.