Grief, resilience and the story behind ‘Shalosh Garzon’

For a few minutes, she drifts away.

She doesn’t speak to anyone. The world feels still, tranquil. There’s commotion around her — blaring rap music through speakers, bubbling anticipation for the night — but not here. Not at her courtside seat.

A little less than two hours before Indiana women’s basketball hosts No. 8 Ohio State inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in mid-February, Yarden Garzon walks onto Branch McCracken Court and makes a beeline for a rack of basketballs.

She picks one up and studies it for a moment, her hands engulfing the seams of the ball. Garzon carries it over to her seat and sits down, aimlessly pounding it against the hardwood as she stares off in the distance.

A woman emerges behind Garzon with a basketball of her own, hoping the junior guard will offer a signature and pose for a picture. Just before she approaches, a nearby security guard waves off the exchange.

Garzon never noticed.

It’s calm right now. In around two hours, Garzon will deliver the knockout blow in Indiana’s 71-61 victory. She’ll wave goodbye to the Buckeyes’ bench with the same stern, cold expression she bore all game.

“I feel like I’m a different person on the court,” Garzon told Inside the Hall.

Indeed, Garzon will morph into the assassin head coach Teri Moren and the Hoosiers so desperately need. She finished the night with 16 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. Her third 3-pointer — punctuated as always by “Shalosh Garzon” from public address announcer Jeremy Gray — marked the 200th of her career.

But that’s later. For now, as she continues dribbling in her seat, Garzon lets her mind wander.

***

Garzon had a panic attack the night of Oct. 7, 2023.

The episodes continued weeks later. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t shake the horrifying images she’d seen on the news. Hamas — a Palestinian militant group — coordinated the deadliest attack on Israel in the country’s history.

An estimated 1,200 people died. Hundreds were abducted, thousands of lives forever altered. Garzon was 19 years old then.

It was almost midnight in Bloomington when the attacks started. A native of Ra’anana, Israel, a suburb of Tel Aviv located just over 50 miles away from Gaza, Garzon was terrified of the unknown.

She feared she’d receive word that a friend or family member had been affected.

“The thought about it is destroying,” Garzon said inside the team’s meeting room at Cook Hall. “I was in such a bad place.”

She calls herself lucky now for only knowing “a friend of a friend,” involved. Garzon checked the news incessantly, watching as her home country was ravaged. She was in constant contact with her family, and her mother Ruth sent a weekly email to Moren with updates about the situation in Israel.

On campus, Garzon said she received threats. She sensed a feeling of animosity from other students in class, saw how they’d post about the conflict on social media.

“At the end of the day it calls for my murder,” Garzon said. “It calls for my family’s murder, and my people’s murder.”

Normally, she would sport a silver Hamsa necklace, a traditionally Jewish symbol of protection.

“Since Oct. 7,” Garzon said, “I stopped wearing it because I was scared.”

Garzon’s teammates instantly offered their support. They hung an Israeli flag in the locker room, one that remains today. Since Garzon arrived on campus in 2022, they tried to understand her culture.

During her freshman year, Garzon had difficulty communicating with her teammates and the coaching staff. In classes, she would translate assignments into Hebrew, learn the concepts and then translate her answers back into English for submission.

Meanwhile, IU’s players learned how to count in Hebrew. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, they ate the traditional pairing of apples and honey. Garzon cooked for her team a few times to celebrate Shabbat on Friday nights, and they collectively read the blessings.

***

Jeremy Gray heard Ruth Garzon had flown into Bloomington.

It was Jan. 15, 2023, and Indiana was set to host Wisconsin. Ruth was visiting for the first time to watch Yarden, who had quickly become a sensation as a freshman. Gray — in the midst of his first season as the public address announcer for IU men’s and women’s basketball — wanted the Garzon family to have something special to cherish at Assembly Hall.

He never told Garzon what he was planning to do. But when she drained a 3-pointer from the corner just over a minute into the game, Gray leaned into his microphone at the scorer’s table. “Shalosh Garzon”, a Hebrew way to say “Three Garzon”, echoed off the walls.

Over three years later, “Shalosh” has become synonymous with Garzon. She broke the program record for 3-pointers against Purdue on March 2 and averages a career 43 shooting percentage from beyond the arc.

“I said to myself ‘Well, if she’s shooting this well and hit a Shalosh, I’m just going to say Shalosh all the time,’” Gray told Inside the Hall. “Pretty quickly the fans caught on to what it meant, and it just became a staple from that point on.”

The very first “Shalosh” call was understated, albeit misinterpreted. Gray said it “thoroughly confused” most of the fans in attendance. In the heat of the game, Garzon couldn’t even hear Gray’s voice.

Now, 216 3-pointers later, Garzon still treasures the call every time. “Shalosh Garzon” T-shirts are sold through the Indiana NIL Store. She’s proud to know that — even if it’s just one word — fans have learned Hebrew.

“I feel like he gave me something that not a lot of people could,” Garzon said of Gray.

When Indiana hosted NCAA tournament games in 2023, Garzon’s older sister Lior came to town with Oklahoma State to take on Miami in the first round. In a 62-61 loss to the Hurricanes, Lior Garzon splashed a pair of triples.

It wasn’t Yarden, but Gray’s call didn’t change. After each of Lior’s threes, Gray said “Shalosh Garzon.”

“She loved it,” Yarden Garzon said with a wide smile. “She was so jealous. Hopefully they will start doing it to all of the Israelis playing in the US.”

On occasion, Gray’s wife would go to a grocery store in Cincinnati to pick up Israeli food for Garzon. She’d come back to Bloomington and place Bissli, a chip-like Israeli snack, in Garzon’s locker.

Gray’s son Jonah wore No. 12 during his basketball season to match Garzon. Before she even 20 years old, Garzon had become something of a Jewish sports icon.

“I’m really proud of it,” Garzon said. “I’m happy to be this woman for the younger generation, and with the antisemitism going on right now, I feel like being this model for them is huge. It’s even sometimes more than I can understand.

Two weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, Indiana held its annual Hoosier Hysteria event. During player introductions, after Garzon’s name was announced, she entered from the tunnel with an Israeli flag cloaked over her back.

The crowd roared in applause. Israeli flags dotted the stands during games that season. Half a world away from her family and friends, Garzon was supported.

“I do think she’s leaving as an IU icon,” Gray said. “She’s an athlete that people are going to talk about for years afterwards.”

***
When Garzon was four years old, she’d join her father Eitan and her twin sister Yuval on a court just outside their home.

She learned shooting mechanics early on, putting up an incalculable number of shots each day. Her regimen, at least from a young age, wasn’t necessarily strict.

“But I just took a lot, a lot, a lot of shots,” Garzon said.

Before high school, Garzon wanted to be a veterinarian. She had a dog named Toto growing up and currently lives with her dog Ekko in Bloomington. By the time she was 15, Garzon was taller than her peers.

Basketball became her primary focus. She connected with an AAU coach in Fort Wayne who told Moren and the IU staff about her. Before Garzon came to Indiana, she said the highest attendance in a game she played in was around 2,000.

That was the high school finals. Typically, her games garnered around 50 fans made up of family and friends.

As a Hoosier, the moment has never seemed to faze Garzon. She’s gained a reputation for her blank expressions and lack of emotion on the floor.

“Watching her play, you get a strong sense that she’s known for her stoicism,” Gray said. “It’s kind of the fierce, competitive thing that she’s got on her face when she’s playing.”

Off the court, Gray said she has a sarcastic sense of humor. There’s a simple reason the switch flips so dramatically.

“I want to win,” Garzon said. “I don’t really care about anything else.”

Against Ohio State roughly a month ago, the Hoosiers posted perhaps their best win of the season. With just under two minutes remaining, Garzon stood alone at the top of the key. She received a pass from Sydney Parrish, spotted up and released. The bench rose in anticipation, and after the shot fell, Garzon raised both arms to the sky.

At the scorer’s table, hovered above his microphone, Gray waited a few moments before delivering “Shalosh Garzon” to a raucous crowd.

The Buckeyes called timeout, but just before Garzon retreated to the Indiana huddle, she stared down the Ohio State bench. Garzon flapped her hand to wave goodbye, assuming control of her home court.

“She’s like our silent killer out there,” Shay Ciezki said postgame. “That was a dagger for us. I think everyone felt it, even Ohio State.”

Once the final buzzer sounded, Indiana’s players cheered and hugged one another. Garzon stayed away from the commotion. She remained expressionless and immediately walked into the handshake line.

***

Seated at the podium inside the Assembly Hall media room, Garzon continually glances down at her left wrist. There’s an inscription written in black sharpie over white tape.

The first line reads “BRING THEM HOME.”

The second says “NOAM AVIGDORI.”

It’s Nov. 9, 2023, and Garzon is speaking to reporters following Indiana’s season-opening 96-43 win over Eastern Illinois. Garzon tallied 15 points and answered questions about her offseason preparation and her comfort scoring at all three levels.

Quiet by nature, Garzon’s responses are brief. Nearly seven minutes went by, and questions ceased. But Garzon had more to say.

“I want, if I can, to add something,” Garzon said.

She wanted to explain the reason for her wristband. Garzon played the game with it on as a sign of solidarity. Noam Avigdori, a 12-year-old girl from Israel, was held in Hamas captivity after the attacks but has since been released.

Garzon didn’t see basketball as an escape from her trauma. She didn’t see the sport as a respite from what’s happened to her home country since the events of Oct. 7.

The freshman phenom who became one of the most beloved Hoosiers in recent memory saw it as an opportunity.

“I’m trying to be there for my country and do whatever I can to use my platform,” Garzon says now. “I understand that I represent way more than myself.”