In a sense, Indiana women’s basketball has been fighting an uphill battle all season.
That’s not to say this year has been impossible. But IU’s 2024-25 campaign has been far different than its previous five. It’s been a bumpier ride than the Hoosiers had become accustom to, and that’s been clear since the beginning of the season.
But still, Indiana (19-12) wound up on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble on Selection Sunday, earning a No. 9 seed and a first-round matchup against Utah (22-8). The game will tip off at 1:30 p.m. ET on Friday, March 21 and air on ESPN2.
Any campaigning for IU was more likely for seeding and positioning than simply making the tournament. But the case for this team heading into March Madness is built around its fight, its ability to compete with top teams, and a belief that things are coming together are the right time.
“We’ve had our lows and highs. I think we are peaking right now,” graduate student Sydney Parrish said after IU’s loss to USC in the Big Ten Tournament. “I think we have enough confidence going into the NCAA Tournament that we can beat anybody.”
IU opened the season with a win over Brown, but head coach Teri Moren saw major red flags from her team’s performance that night. Those concerns proved prescient as the Hoosiers followed that up with shocking back-to-back losses to Harvard and Butler.
The beginning of this season was always expected to be bumpy as the program adapted to life without Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia. But those first three games made clear that expectations for this IU team needed to be reset. The Hoosiers dealt with injuries to Lexus Bargesser and Lenée Beaumont that crippled their backcourt depth, and Beaumont wound up missing the entire season. Parrish also missed time in December.
This team came to be known for its lack of consistency. Indiana compiled some good results, like a road win over Iowa (a No. 6 seed) and a home win over Ohio State (a No. 4 seed), but fluctuated between those type of performances with frustrating letdowns all throughout Big Ten season.
“Anytime you lose … an All-American like Mackenzie and a great shooter like Sara, and you bring in new players like Shay (Ciezki) and Strip (Karoline Striplin), it’s going to take time for your team to learn how to jell and learn to play with each other,” Moren said after the USC game. “We knew the year was going to … (have) ebbs and flows in it. But 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 things that aren’t really basketball related but can disrupt what our normal is.”
But now, Indiana is heading for its sixth straight NCAA Tournament.
The road to this point only matters so much now. The Hoosiers are in a different position than they’ve enjoyed in the recent past, as they’ll head back out on the road for the tournament after hosting the first two rounds over the last three years. But given the ups and downs they went through all season getting to this point, they were finally able to exhale a bit seeing their name pop up during the Selection Show. IU had no doubts it was going to make the field of 68, but Sunday night gave them a moment of confirmation about their progress through the season.
“Obviously, with past years, we’ve hosted,” Chloe Moore-McNeil said Sunday night. “But you’re always holding your breath, waiting to see if you even get into the tournament. This is a hard tournament to get into and play in. So we’re just grateful and blessed that we get to have this experience for the last time.”
The Hoosiers are matched up with a Utah team who entered this season in a similar position as them — the Utes also spent the beginning of their season adapting to life without a star forward, after Alissa Pili moved on last year. That led to some bumps in the road, just like IU endured. In mid-November, Utah fell to a Northwestern team that went on to finish 9-18.
The Utes, unlike IU, did put together a sustained winning streak in conference play, with seven straight victories from Jan. 22 through Feb. 15. But the Hoosiers feel like they’re playing their best basketball at the right time of year. They played a solid game in a win over Oregon in the Big Ten Tournament, and took NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed USC down to the wire in the quarterfinals.
Should Indiana advance past Utah, No. 1 seed South Carolina would most likely await. IU gave the Gamecocks a major scare in the Sweet 16 last year, their closest call of that entire NCAA Tournament. And with the form they’re in, they’d relish a chance at a rematch.
But that opportunity isn’t a given, with a tough matchup to get through first. Very little has been a given for this Indiana team this year. That’s molded this team into what it is entering the NCAA Tournament, for better or for worse. All Moren and her players can do is what they know best: practice hard, play with confidence, and let the results speak for themselves.
“I think we felt really good about our performance against Oregon. We felt really good about our performance against USC as well. And so I’m hopeful that our kids have a lot of confidence,” Moren said on Sunday. “We’ve had a great week of practice. We tried to take a couple extra days off, but we’ve been up and down, very competitive inside of practice. And these guys have responded to it really well. And so it’s been a really good week for us.”
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