Teri Moren has yet to meet new IU head men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries.
She’s been busy getting her Indiana women’s basketball team ready for its NCAA Tournament matchup against Utah on Friday. The Hoosiers traveled to Columbia, S.C. on Wednesday, the same day DeVries arrived in Bloomington.
But Moren has high hopes for the hire.
“I’m excited for what’s next for men’s basketball, because Indiana is such a special place, and it takes somebody special to be the leader over there in men’s basketball,” Moren said Thursday. “I haven’t met coach (DeVries) yet, but just in the things that I’ve read, I’m really looking forward to not only meeting him, but watching him work. I feel like he’s going to do some really special things at Indiana.”
Moren has often maintained good relationships with Indiana’s men’s basketball coaches throughout her tenure in Bloomington. Tom Crean was always a vocal supporter of IU women’s basketball — he even showed up at a WNIT game just days after Indiana fired him in 2017, and he offered public congratulations to Moren and the program in 2023 when they won the Big Ten regular season title. Mike Woodson also offered support and encouragement for the women’s team when prompted, and would typically praise Moren’s coaching prowess. He and his staff seemingly borrowed some play concepts from Moren and her staff on occasion as well.
But Moren has always stood up for her program’s ability to generate excitement on its own, and doesn’t need men’s basketball to boost that interest.
“We’ve created a lot of buzz — and we haven’t needed men’s basketball for that — by what we’ve been able to do the last few years and what we continue to do inside of this program,” Moren said. “But does it help? It also helps to have a good football team. There’s 24 sports at Indiana. We love them all. We all want to be successful. But to have a successful football program, to have a successful men’s (basketball) program only helps everybody else. And so, we cheer like crazy for everybody.”
Ninth-seeded IU women’s basketball takes on No. 8 seed Utah on Friday at 1:30 p.m. ET, with the winner likely to face No. 1 seed South Carolina on Sunday.
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