The Hoosiers are in the midst of a down year in a post Mackenzie Holmes era.
Indiana has been among the most reliable teams in the Big Ten for the past four years.
The Hoosiers were firmly in the mix at the top of the league for all three, managing to win sole possession of the 2023 Big Ten title in the process. It’s a program that’s become accustomed to success and expected to win by fans, national viewers and others.
Which is why the slump it’s found itself in is a tad surprising.
Indiana has gone two straight offseasons losing program cornerstones, it’s probably safe to say that both Grace Berger and Mackenzie Holmes are among the top five players in program history given their individual excellence and team achievements.
This year was always going to be a difficult one. Right now the Hoosiers just look like they’re missing something.
The same could be said of last year. Indiana was still a very good team that was among the best in the country and could compete with anyone on a good day. But the Hoosiers lacked a certain level of athleticism in the backcourt that Berger provided and it showed against some teams that were willing to play hands on, physical defense.
Indiana has had trouble against pressing defenses for years now. Teri Moren is among the best coaches in the country and has executed enough good press breaks to get past it at times. But at some point you need someone who can just break down their defender with sheer talent and handles and Indiana hasn’t had that since Berger.
Note that this is not me saying, at all, that she’d be that exact type of player, but that’s a role you could see Lenee Beaumont growing into at some point. Unfortunately for this team, she’s been injured all season. Indiana needs growth from its young pieces in the backcourt, Beaumont and LaMendola, and the former has had a major setback.
You can rely on the program to develop players, for one. That’s happened with Chloe Moore-McNeil, Berger, Holmes and countless others. Even Sara Scalia took a big leap after one season with the program (which, put a pin in that)
The table was set for Indiana and it just hasn’t been good enough. So what can this team do to succeed?
Well, we’ve seen it. Indiana has looked really good against the likes of Stanford, Iowa and through most of their run in the Battle 4 Atlantis. They even competed with USC for forty minutes.
If you were expecting some kind of analytics-based salve for the issue, I’m sorry to disappoint but the key is really just that Indiana needs its best players to be at their best particularly on the offense end of the floor.
Indiana’s most important and capable offensive players, in order, are probably Yarden Garzon, Chloe Moore-McNeil. Shay Ciezki, Sydney Parrish and whoever is in at center.
For the purposes of this argument, consider Garzon and Moore-McNeil 1A and 1B. Parrish might seem distant at fourth but the gap between her and the rest isn’t substantial.
I’ve put Garzon at 1A for a few reasons. For one, she’s a junior now. She’s grown beyond the role of a catch-and-shoot player she had as a freshman. The staff pushed her to do more with the ball last season and it led to mixed results. That should serve as a learning experience.
When Garzon is on, she’s easily one of the best players in the Big Ten. Her positional size, a 6’3” guard who can handle the ball, is pretty outrageous and makes her a tough cover for every backcourt. Teams sometimes have to sacrifice size in the paint to counter Garzon, who sort of demands physical defense if she’s having a good night since that’s about the only way you can stop her.
She’s also firmly Indiana’s best shooter and has been relied on a bit more as a distributor as the years have gone on since she has the ball in her hands more often.
Indiana just needs more out of Garzon. She needs to be making shots and providing winning plays with the ball in her hands be it a score or dishing it out to someone else. She’s taking more shots this year as she slides into that featured role, but her scoring hasn’t risen enough outside of great performances against Iowa, UCLA and Penn State.
It’s probably not wholly a coincidence that Indiana’s recent three-game skid has come when Garzon has put up 3, 10 and 8 points while shooting 3-18 from long range. The saving grace is that Garzon finds ways to make winning plays like crashing the glass or passing when her shot isn’t falling, but Indiana just needs points.
She should be consistently leading the Hoosiers in scoring and has to find a way out of this slump of her own.
As Indiana’s point guard, Indiana also needs Chloe Moore-McNeil at her best on a consistent basis. She’s never been a truly elite scorer but with others like Berger, Scalia and Holmes on the roster, she hasn’t had to be.
Indiana trusts her with the ball, like a lot. The staff wants her to be aggressive and hunt for her own offense at times rather than look to pass every possession. She’s capable of giving the Hoosiers 10 points on a night by night basis and does the most as a passer and on the boards.
Moore-McNeil has largely done her job as a scorer during this three-game tumble but needs to cut down on turnovers as that has become a sudden problem with 3, 4 and 4.
Then there’s Ciezki, who was meant to slide into that Scalia role as a shooter who could push the ball down the floor in transition. There’s been games like Northwestern and Wisconsin where she’s looked great. There’s been others like Iowa, UNC and most recently Oregon where she’s just about disappeared.
Indiana cannot afford for Ciezki to be a single-digit scorer. She has to put points on the board, it’s her job. It’s extremely hard to win a game where she scores zero, as happened against Oregon.
She was brought in partly for her proficiency as a shooter, so she needs to do that. Her attempts from deep are down this year and there have been multiple important games where Ciezki doesn’t make a single shot from deep because she’s having a poor shooting night or simply didn’t shoot enough.
During the whole of this three-game losing streak, Ciezki has taken six shots from deep. Six. Garzon took almost double that, 11, against USC alone. That just cannot happen.
Let’s go back to that pin on Scalia. Recall that she transferred to Indiana ahead of the 2022-23 season and looked disappointing then before becoming the Hoosiers’ second best offensive player last season.
It could be as simple as Cieki having a similarly rough time with a transition to a new system. Either way, she just has to be taking more shots.
Then there’s Parrish, who can consistently put up 10 points per game one way or another. She too has had trouble with her shot all season, falling from a 40% 3-point shooter last year to 29% this year.
All you can do there is scratch your head a bit. To Parrish’s credit, she’s found other ways of scoring and her overall scoring average hasn’t even dropped. She’s also dealt with substantial injury for a while now. Even if her shot has regressed, she’s a player you want on the floor.
Which leads to the final point here: post scoring.
Indiana has not been good enough in the paint. Both Lilly Meister and Karoline Striplin have been solid, but it just hasn’t been enough. Indiana hasn’t asked either to be Holmes, obviously, but the drop-off in the post is impactful for a few reasons.
Holmes was so dangerous down there that teams had to dedicate two defenders to her whenever she got the ball. Her sheer gravity opened up space on the perimeter for Indiana’s shooters. All of the players listed above with the exception of Ciezki were benefitted greatly by what Holmes was able to do and vice versa.
Indiana made a move in the starting lineup ahead of the game against USC, replacing Meister for Striplin. Striplin has provided better defense and a bit more scoring down there, but she’s not quite the kind of post that could lead the Hoosiers in scoring.
One thing to note here is that all of these players are very much trying. If you don’t play hard at Indiana you’re not seeing the floor. Everyone listed is making winning plays if they’re not scoring, but at some point these Hoosiers just need points.
Indiana has been so good recently because they could expect at least one player to score 15 or more each and every game with a very reliable second option. That’s just no longer true.
If just one of Garzon, Moore-McNeil, Ciezki or Parrish is having a good night, that’s probably only good enough for Indiana to keep ifs head above water. If two are? They can probably compete. Three? You should feel good about their odds.
Indiana just needs better offensive consistency. Someone’s gotta step up these next few weeks if this team wants to reach its ceiling.