ROSEMONT, Ill. — When Teri Moren found time to reflect on her job and her program this offseason, she drew one main conclusion.
IU’s head women’s basketball coach took some time off over the summer after she finished her work with USA Basketball. A few weeks to mentally reset after a long season, immediately transitioning into transfer portal madness, with national team business following.
And as she unwound and rested, she realized she wanted to be more present in the day-to-day operation of her program.
“It gave me an opportunity to reflect and think about things that I did want to be different,” Moren said Wednesday at Big Ten Media Days. “And part of that was delegating, but also giving up some of those responsibilities that I’ve had in order to be able to be more present and spend more time, maybe, in those player development sessions, and down on the floor with our kids when they’re working out.”
Moren typically spent more time in her office watching film, preparing practice plans, or drawing up sets. She’d shelter up in there, and let her assistants handle the non-practice aspects of player development.
But Moren missed the teaching aspect of her coaching job. And with so much roster turnover for her program this season, she opted to shift around some responsibilities. Moren is careful to not take too much away from her assistants, wanting to ensure she’s still doing right by them as developing coaches. But she’s felt rejuvenated by simply being around those workouts and getting to have more individual conversations with her players in informal settings.
“I still allow my staff — because I still believe that in order to help them with their coaching journey, that they have to be given those opportunities to coach and to teach,” Moren said. “So I’m usually down there just to be a cheerleader, and maybe be a passer, maybe be a shagger.” Moren said. “It’s not uncommon when we’re doing workouts that half of our team or a majority of our team is in the gym, waiting. They either have just completed their workout or are waiting to do their workout. So it also gives me an opportunity to have those one-off conversations, check-ins, with them off of the sideline as well. It’s been something I’ve really tried to be committed to doing.”
Moren is the winningest head coach in IU women’s basketball history, with 10 consecutive seasons of at least 20 wins. She’s achieved that success through rigorous game-planning and player development triumphs across several iterations of her teams.
But the Hoosiers is in a state of heavy turnover, with only one returning starter and eight new players, between freshmen and transfers. This was as good an opportunity as any to change some big-picture aspects of her program. That means leaning more on her staff — Ali Patberg, Colsten Thompson, Keyanna Warthen, Paul Miller, and Rhet Wierzba — both on and off the practice court.
“Sometimes that’s hard for me to give up some of those responsibilities that I’m used to doing. But I have great trust and great belief that they all can — if they didn’t think they can do it, believe me, I probably wouldn’t allow them to do it or ask them to do it,” Moren said. “And so it’s been growth for me to give up some of that responsibility, but also, to allow them to have ownership in everything that they do, day in and day out. So some of it is to help them, our staff, but some of it was certainly for me to be able to kind of take a step back and re-evaluate, but also, I guess, just try to be a little bit more present for the players.”
For complete coverage of IU women’s basketball, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
