What Teri Moren Said After Indiana Beat Oregon 78-62 In The Big Ten Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren spoke to the media after the Hoosiers earned a 78-62 triumph in their first game at the Big Ten Tournament.

Here is what Moren had to say at her postgame press conference.

Opening statement …

Teri Moren: It was a great first game for us today. I thought a month or so ago, when we went out to Oregon, did not play our best. We knew there were a couple categories that we had to win today.

I thought our turnovers stayed low, which was going to be important, our ability to rebound the ball was going to be — was going to have to be there as well. On a game where there’s a lot of funkiness with the fouls called and us having to play small and play without two of our 5s, I thought Faith (Wiseman) came in as a freshman and did some really great things and helped us hang on until we could get to the fourth.

Yarden (Garzon) obviously got herself into some foul trouble too. So being without her somewhat, always a challenge not having her on the floor, but I thought Lexie Bargesser came in and did a great job of helping, particularly in the first half.

Did a lot of really good things today. Really happy for our group. This is, like I said, it’s not very often that you have an opportunity to get a do-over, and for us we had that opportunity today. I loved how our kids came out and fought for 40 minutes.

On playing how you practice …

Moren: Again, a lot of things have to travel. Some might say this is like a home game for us just because of our fans being able to come and watch us, but defensively, your defense has to travel, your offensive execution has to travel. You have to be able to have laser focus on not just the game plan defensively, but also offensively in terms of how we feel like we can take advantage of the opponent and score.

Somebody had asked about our pace. I thought the pace we needed to play at today needed to be far greater than it was in Oregon, just, again, watching it, very sluggish. I don’t know if it was the travel. We can’t make excuses for that.

I do think we are better when we’re hitting the ball ahead and we’re playing fast. We’re sharing the ball. I thought Shay came out. I think she had 11 points in the first quarter. She was very aggressive.

So that’s what we wanted our guys to do. We wanted them to play fast, but we also wanted them to be very aggressive today.

On whether the team is more comfortable in late-game situations …

Moren: You know, (Garzon) has a lot to do with it, Syd has a lot to do with it. When they started squeezing into our lead, Syd hit that big shot in the corner. Yarden comes off an easy pin-down screen and hits the big three to help us continue to get separation.

In those moments, you have to have a lot of guts to be able to take big shots, especially when teams start coming back and catching up. You only maybe have that five-point lead or ten-point lead. It’s like you want to keep building it, but you have to have the players to be able to stick shots when needed.

Again, I thought — again, I thought Lexie was so good in the first half too. We got into foul trouble and had to sit Yarden a lot, so it came from a lot of different people today. Lilly came in and gave us great minutes. We’ve already talked about Faith, but Strip (Karoline Striplin), that really put us at a disadvantage from a size — but we decided we were going to play small, which probably helped us too because we became even more aggressive.

We could run our motion because we have four guards out there, which was kind of fun to do too. We don’t play that way very often.

On Faith Wiseman coming into the game and the nerves that come with suddenly playing …

Moren: I think Syd said it best, we talk always about you just never know. You always have to stay ready and be ready when your number is called.

Again, she said it. Faith is a kid that comes in, she does extra work, she’s in the gym. In spite of maybe not getting a lot of minutes in Big Ten play, she’s a kid that’s building for her future here at Indiana.

That’s what I’ve really admired about her. Sometimes when kids don’t get the time, it’s easy for them to choose not to come in that gym every day and try to keep getting better, and Faith has not been that kid. We’ve had a lot of them that have come through our program. But really proud of just how she, like I said, just helped us hang on there.

And Syd’s probably right, the nerves have to — I’m sure they were there for her, especially early, but I think she ended up finally settling in a little bit and I think realizing that I can play in this game. I deserve to be here. You have to trust that. You’ve got to trust that.

But was there nerves? There’s always nerves. I don’t care who’s in the game. This is a really great Oregon team. We came up short to them a couple months ago. We understand this. If you lose today, we go home. So I don’t know that nerves are a bad thing. I think nerves mean that you’re ready.

I thought, like I said, going back to Faith, though, very, very proud of what she was able to do today for us.

On foul trouble, officiating, and the adjustments that had to be made …

Moren: That’s when you have a good staff or a great staff that’s over there telling you when you can, because I probably want to get them in a little bit sooner.

Again, I think Yarden said it best. It is part of the game. For us, sometimes you have to adjust. Whether or not we agree, we disagree, they’ve got a hard job, the officials, and that was a very physical game. I don’t — last thing I would ever want to do is be an official.

It is hard to try to manage — we haven’t been in this situation all year where we’ve had two 5s on the bench the way we had today. Whether it’s sometimes in losses, but also when you can win a game the way we did, you learn a lesson every time you’re in between the lines.

I thought for us, like I said, this is great experience for Faith. As we move on and she moves on in our program, just to understand that Coach has been saying it, but it really did happen, it came true today that I had to be ready when my number was called.

On how the defensive start for Indiana dictated the rest of the game …

Moren: They may not be a high-scoring team, but where they concern you is how physical they are, right? I think our charge, or my charge for our kids was, look, we’re playing against a physical team, an aggressive team. We’ve got to be that too, like we have to be strong with the ball, we have to be strong in our cuts, we have to be strong in our entry passes, getting open and so forth.

But we also have to — because Deja Kelly is so good coming off high ball screens, their motion that they run really puts a lot of pressure on you, whether coming off chase action or coming off a wide staggered screen or a wide pin-down, they’re very efficient. Although they may not score a lot of points, they can put pressure on you if you’re not careful.

Again, I put my money on Chloe all the time defensively that she can guard the best. I thought Shay did a great job. I thought Lexie came in, again, and did a terrific job. Then Yarden. Our guards have to be great defenders because that’s who they rely on, even though when 15 comes in, they’re trying to put that thing inside.

For a majority of the time, this team has won because of their guard play.

On playing against USC …

Moren: I’ve watched just the first maybe quarter and a half because we were so focused on Oregon. I do feel like a couple things: We put them at the free-throw line too much, so we can’t foul. And then we’ve got to be able to hit shots. The quarter and the half that I did see, we got some good shots, just didn’t go down.

Build a lead, and then we kind of lost the lead because we put them at the free-throw line.

So what we’ll tell our kids, and we tell after every opponent, they don’t need your help. Quit fouling them. Don’t put them at the line. Make them have to earn everything.

Again, it’s another shot at — are they No. 1 right now still? No. 2? At one of the best teams in the country that has one of the best players in the country. Kiki Iriafen’s not too far behind. She’s a load too. This is a really good USC team. We have a tremendous amount of respect for them. We know this, it’s going to take our very best.