IU women’s basketball enters the main Big Ten schedule next week after a non-conference slate filled with ups and downs.
The Hoosiers sport an 11-2 overall record, and they’re ranked No. 57 on Torvik. The record is bloated with wins over largely unimpressive competition — IU’s best win so far is over No. 73 Gonzaga on a neutral court. The team’s two losses came against its two best opponents to date: AP No. 10 and Torvik No. 27 Iowa State on a neutral court, and Torvik No. 39 Illinois on the road.
Teri Moren’s team has its work cut out going into January. Torvik doesn’t have Indiana projected as a favorite in any game until Feb. 1. Moren said her group has gotten better since the beginning of the season, but she acknowledged that there needs to be much more improvement as the schedule toughens up.
“We’ve worked too hard not to see some growth. … We need to see a lot more, especially when we start back in the Big Ten,” Moren said after IU’s win over Western Carolina. “We just gotta keep working, keep improving, keep showing them and hoping that the growth will continue to show up in these games. What we don’t have time for is to take steps backwards. We don’t have that kind of time. And if we continue to have the slippages that we keep having, defensively, it’s not going to it’s going to be really hard for us to be in games, stay in games and win games.”
Indiana’s roster looks different than it did at the beginning of the year. Sophomore guard Valentyna Kadlecova, after starting the first 10 games of the season, left the program in mid-December to return to the Czech Republic and pursue professional basketball. Redshirt freshman forward Sydney Fenn was ruled out for the season due to complications in her recovery from an injury last year. And sophomore center Zania Socka-Nguemen has missed six straight games with a lower right leg injury, and Moren did not yet know her timeline for returning. Incoming freshman forward Zoe Jackson is enrolling early and joining the program in January, but she intends to redshirt.
Coupled with sophomore forward Faith Wiseman taking a shot to the jaw in a practice and missing IU’s last two games, the Hoosiers have only nine players available until Wiseman and/or Socka-Nguemen can come back.
Indiana’s team is young and inexperienced, even with those unavailable players factored in. And some of the bench pieces have not shown the progress Moren has been hoping for, leaving the Hoosiers with some major depth questions. IU’s head coach said after the Western Carolina game she would’ve liked to see players like sophomore guard Phoenix Stotijn, sophomore guard Chloe Spreen, junior forward Jade Ondineme, and senior guard Jerni Kiaku take more advantage of their opportunities.
“There was some frustration, I think, on our part, that we are 13 games into this, and we’re still seeing some of the mistakes by those guys. Whether it’s offensively, whether it’s defensively, having discernment what a good shot looks like,” Moren said. “They got to play more minutes tonight, but you’re still trying to gain trust from us, in terms of what we can count on once you get inside the game. And I think for them, I would like to have seen better discernment on what a good shot is. Some of the slippages that we had on the defensive side of the ball — those guys have to be better.”
Indiana’s going to need its bench to pick things up going into Big Ten play. But, in all likelihood, the Hoosiers are going to lean on their starters to get them over the line in conference games.
Moren is starting two freshmen in Nevaeh Caffey and Maya Makalusky, something rarely seen during her 12 years as IU head coach. Caffey has started every game for IU, and though her offensive game is a work in progress, the Warrenton, Mo. product already looks like a veteran defensively. Makalusky entered the lineup on December 11, and she’s shown steady improvement since the start of the year.
Frankly, Indiana needs Socka-Nguemen to return to action as soon as possible. She averaged 13 points and a team-high nine rebounds per game before her injury. Junior Edessa Noyan has started in her place and recorded 8.5 points and 6.7 rebounds per game across those six contests, but IU is a different team with Socka-Nguemen on the court.
But with or without the UCLA transfer, Indiana will go as far as its top two players can take them. The Hoosiers will rely heavily on senior guard Shay Ciezki and redshirt sophomore guard/wing Lenée Beaumont.
Beaumont has been thrust into a big role this season, after playing just 9.6 minutes per game as a freshman in 2023-24 and then missing all of last year with a knee injury. The Lisle, Ill. native has handled the situation with poise. She’s putting up 15.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game, while shooting 50 percent from the field and 47.9 percent from 3-point range. Beaumont has displayed a mid-range shot that looks like a dangerous weapon, along with positional versatility that’s been huge for IU with the depth concerns.
“She’s a great player,” Ciezki said after IU’s win over Butler. “We always talk about, you see one shot go through, and it’s like, ‘Alright, I can breathe a little bit.’ She’s been hitting a ton of those, so it’s nice to sit back and watch sometimes.”
Ciezki has been Indiana’s star this season. The Hoosiers would’ve dropped a few more games if not for Ciezki turning into one of the best scorers in the country. She’s currently fourth in the nation and first in the Big Ten at 24.3 points per game, while shooting 55.8 percent from the field and 46.3 percent from beyond the arc. The former Penn State transfer has taken major strides in her defense and rebounding, despite standing just 5-foot-7. Ciezki has also improved her offensive game, becoming a well-rounded, three-level scoring threat rather than a primarily catch-and-shoot player.
The Buffalo, N.Y. product is playing at an All-Big Ten first team level, and maybe an All-American level.
“I really feel like Shay feels like she is our go-to player. She has to be able to score for us. That’s a lot of responsibility. But she’s a New Yorker, so she has a toughness about her that she plays with,” Moren said after IU’s win over Gonzaga. “I think Shay’s a confident kid, she is a kid that kind of embraces the role of, we have to have her. But she has worked extremely hard, and that’s where your confidence comes from, is all those reps that she gets in Cook Hall or in Assembly Hall. Just continuing to work, and growing her game.”
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