A more-than-deserved victory lap.
Welcome back to Crimson Quarry’s 2024-25 Indiana women’s basketball player preview series. Today, we’re previewing graduate guard Chloe Moore-McNeil.
The Story So Far
Chloe Moore-McNeil epitomizes the culture Indiana head coach Teri Moren has built in Bloomington.
The 5-11 Greenfield, Tenn., native’s gone from averaging 7.3 minutes per game as a freshman to starting every game over the last two seasons thanks to hard work, coachability, and trust in Moren’s process.
Few would’ve blamed Moore-McNeil for transferring out after a season or two. Mutual trust kept her in Bloomington, though, and the program would not be where it is today without that.
Offense
Given the talent she’s shared the floor with, Moore-McNeil’s spent most of her career as a complementary scorer. All that changed midseason last year.
Indiana’s offense was becoming stagnant. The Hoosiers needed someone to step up as a scorer so the coaching staff approached Moore-McNeil, telling their selfless leader to be more selfish with the basketball. It worked.
Moore-McNeil scored in double figures in eleven of Indiana’s last 14 games and finished the season with career-highs in points per game (10.2), field goal attempts (252), and field goal percentage (.464).
Despite an uptick in turnovers, asking Moore-McNeil to do more with the basketball paid off. The fantastic passer’s assist-to-turnover ratio dropped from a ridiculous 3.23 in 2022-23 to 2.76 in 2023-24. That figure was still 11th-best in the NCAA. Moore-McNeil is one of the nation’s most efficient, and well-rounded, point guards.
CMM also added a deadly 3-point shot to her bag last year. Nobody was better from deep than Indiana (.400 3PT%) last season and Moore-McNeil did her part by knocking down 38 of 93 (.409) 3-point attempts.
Four (4!!!!) Hoosier starters shot 40% or better from the arc last year. With three of those four returning this season, 3-point shooting will continue to be a point of emphasis for the Indiana offense.
Defense
Moore-McNeil’s been named to the Big Ten All-Defensive team each of the last two seasons. She defends the opposition’s best guard every night. Even with studs like UCLA’s Kiki Rice and USC’s JuJu Watkins joining the conference there is no assignment on Indiana’s schedule CMM can’t handle.
Outlook
Chloe Moore-McNeil is the soul of this team. When Grace Berger’s career ended the essence of Indiana basketball dissipated, floating above the Assembly Hall floor before finding its way to CMM. Need a bucket? Get the ball to Chloe. She gets better every year and the rest of the conference is in serious trouble if that trend continues.