NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - INDIANA VS UCONN

March 26, 2022

Teri Moren

Ali Patberg

Mackenzie Holmes

Total Mortgage Arena

Indiana Hoosiers

Sweet 16 Media Conference

UConn 75, Indiana 58

TERI MOREN: Well, first of all, congratulations to a very good UConn team. We felt like we got off to a fast start and a really good start. Had a little bit of momentum going into halftime after Lex hits that big three and pulls within four, and we probably needed to stay out there because we went back into the locker room and made some adjustments.

But we came back out in the third quarter, and it was just really a bugaboo for us. They got off to a 16-0 run, made a 16-0 run, and you just can't allow that to happen against a team like UConn. It's very difficult to overcome a start like that. We just did some uncharacteristic things of our team.

We knew it. We were disappointed with that, and then we just didn't do a good enough job on the boards today. They got second and third-shot opportunities. 14 second-chance points and so forth.

Needed to do a better job of protecting the paint. We were unable to do that today, and give the credit to UConn.

But nonetheless, I'm really proud of our group. We've had a tremendous season, have had some adversity that we've had to overcome. And as I said to these guys, they just continue to show up every day and do the work for us.

Although we're disappointed, we did not want this thing to end anytime soon because we really enjoy being around each other and working with each other. I'm super proud of my staff and our team in terms of what we were able to overcome and the success that we had this season.

Q. Ali, I can see the emotion on your face. Seven years later, this is it finally. If you can describe the moments afterward, kind of what's in your head right now and now that you're starting to get to the end of college.

ALI PATBERG: I'm disappointed we lost. I'm not a good loser. So this is not how I envisioned going out. But I'm just thankful that Coach Moren believed in me five years ago and gave me an opportunity to wear Hoosier on my chest. I just hope that the time I had at IU people just remember how hard I played and I was a good teammate and worked as hard as I could. I'm thankful.

It hurts right now, but I'm thankful.

Q. Mackenzie, obviously you can see the emotion with Ali. What have she and these seniors meant to you, and how much have they done for the program?

MACKENZIE HOLMES: I don't think I could even put that into words, and I told Ali I'm not ready to have her not be my teammate anymore. This team is filled with 11 selfless girls who would just put each other before themselves. I mean, Ali is going to be my sister for life, as the other seniors will be. I don't think I'm going to let myself process this for a while.

Q. Mackenzie, it seemed you guys went into halftime with some momentum only down a few. What happened there at the beginning of the third quarter, and what was it that they did that didn't enable you guys to make -- you cut it to 11 at one point, but not any further than that. What did they do to keep you from making that comeback?

MACKENZIE HOLMES: I think Coach just said in her opening statement, we had some momentum, and they came out in that third quarter and went on a 16-0 run. I think that's kind of where we lost our momentum a little bit. We lost on the boards, too, which we're not going to win any games when we do that. So that was hard, and I just think that, yeah, it was a collection of those things.

Q. Ali, in the first half you got a lot of good looks offensively, scored pretty well. I think at one point you had 18 points, four of you had four points each, somebody else had two. How much of that came from good scouting, good preparation in regards to where you might be able to find open looks on the floor?

ALI PATBERG: Yeah, it's everything. I've always said it, we come into every game prepared with a great game plan from our coaches. I think we were -- I don't know how many points we had at half, but I think we even missed some good looks that should have went down for us.

But it came down to that third quarter, and yeah.

Q. Mackenzie, how much of the problems on the boards was Connecticut's size and athleticism, or were there other factors in your mind?

MACKENZIE HOLMES: I mean, they out-rebounded us by 12, so clearly it was an issue. They're lengthy, they're athletic, so boxing them out just wasn't enough. We had to go get it, too, and I personally -- I'll take the blame for that, failed to do that multiple times throughout the game, and yeah.

Q. For either of you guys, first how do you start the process -- I'm sure you're probably not there yet, but kind of thinking about this being the last time with that starting five together, what that group meant? And an assumption of your future plans, but I wanted to ask you, in this era of transfer portal and the WNBA draft eligibility, what your future is?

MACKENZIE HOLMES: I'm going to wear Indiana on my chest until they don't let me wear Indiana on my chest anymore. I don't know where the speculation came from for that, but I'm going to wear that jersey as long as I possibly can.

Q. They built up a 20-point lead obviously in the third quarter. As they started to make that run and you guys get into that hole, what are you telling each other out on the court and in the huddles?

MACKENZIE HOLMES: Yeah, just one possession at a time, one stop at a time, and then there were times that I thought we got good looks after getting stops, but we just didn't convert, and just staying together as we have this entire season. We're not new to adversity. It's something we've been facing this whole season. Just all we know is to stay together, and that was going to be the mantra for the whole game no matter what the outcome was going to be.

Q. Ali, I know you had spoke earlier before, you guys, if anyone knows, Indiana, they might not have seemed to get the respect because they're a Big Ten team, but you won 24 games and it took Iowa to beat you and it took a top team like UConn to beat you. What do you want to say about this team or you want to share anything else? Because being that you're a senior, I always feel like you have the right, being that you have a platform right now to speak, anything you want to say about the team?

ALI PATBERG: Yeah, we were a great team because we worked hard. We played for one another. Our coaches always had a great game plan. I felt like most games we were the smarter team, tried to be. And I think the biggest thing is we never gave up. We've always continued to fight, and I thought we still fought tonight, even though it didn't go our way in the third. Yeah.

Q. Ali, given that you're from Indiana and I'm from Indiana, too, so shout-out to the home state, for much of my life, Notre Dame has been the powerhouse in women's college basketball in the state. What does it mean to you to be from the state and to wear IU on your chest and to sort of be a part of this program's ascension into a power in what is historically a really important basketball state?

ALI PATBERG: Yeah, it means a lot to me. Yeah, I can't even put it into words. Like I said, I'm just thankful that I got the opportunity to play for Coach Moren. I love everything that our team represents, our school. I know they're going to continue to get better and grow and have success, and I can't wait to see that. Just know that I was a small, small part of it.

TERI MOREN: You know, she's meant so much to this program. You can tell by her emotion that she is, I think, obviously very sad that it's over, even though she was blessed enough to have seven years of college. That's not lost on A.P. She realizes that it's a true blessing to be able to stay at Indiana and play another year.

She's our leader, and she's our leader on the floor, she's our leader off the floor, and so she's going to be missed.

But don't be surprised if at some point she ends up maybe back in Indiana somewhere working with women's basketball because she does have aspirations of wanting to coach this game.

You never know where she might end up, but I'd love to have her as part of what we're doing inside of our program at some point in the future.

Q. Could you just talk a little bit about UConn's defense and in particular what -- I know Grace only had two points in the first half, what they did to you and what impact that had?

TERI MOREN: Well, again, we knew it was going to be a battle of two really good teams that both emphasized the defensive side of the ball. I think the one thing that stood out to me was the physicality. I thought they were really physical.

We are, on the flip side of that, usually the team that everyone talks about our physicality. And so I thought today they were quick to all of our actions. I thought they bottled Grace up. They did nice job of doing that. But really where they hurt us was on the glass. Their size, their ability to just get to the ball faster than we did really, I thought, was what got us.

We've faced some really good defensive teams, but they were awesome. They were terrific today, UConn. But I think the physicality piece of what they did today was a little bit different than I expected.

I knew they were disciplined, but they were physical, and I think that's a good thing as they move forward.

Q. For that starting five that's been around for so long, been your starters for almost two years now, how have you seen in their time with IU kind of the campus kind of surrounded IU and seeing interest in this team grow with how much success they've had?

TERI MOREN: Well, it's been great to watch. It's been great to be a part of. Again, it's because of these kids, these players. Ultimately I have a terrific staff. They work hard. We prepare them, but it takes those players to show up every day, whether it's outside of practice time, and work on their own game, and then show up to practice and be about each other.

That's been consistent. That's the one thing that this group I can say they've done for the last two years is that we know what we can count on, and when you know what you can count on, you can do great things.

They've just been a model of consistency for us in terms of, like I said, showing up, but also being about one another and just wanting each other to have success.

Our chemistry has been off the charts the last two seasons, and a lot of it has to do with not just because they're good basketball players but because they're good kids, and they like each other, and they care about each other.

Q. You just said they're good kids, and that leads me into my question. Can you talk about Nicole, Ali and Aleksa and what they mean to you as a head coach?

TERI MOREN: Well, Leks -- obviously Ali means the world to me -- they all mean the world to me. But all of us, me -- we have different relationships, right. I have it with different ones, with all of them.

Leks came to us four years ago from Latvia, and this has been by far her breakout season. It's going to be hard to let her go. She does have an extra year, but she wants to go back to Europe and play, start her professional career, so we've got to let her do that.

But what I love about her is she's just continued to be inside of our program. We've watched her grow on and off the floor, and she's been such a great teammate.

Nikki, when we got her two years ago, we knew that she was a scorer, a bucket getter, but what we didn't anticipate was her showing up and being such a great defensive ball stopper for us, and she's really set the table for us on that side of the ball.

She's a character. She's the one that inside that locker room always puts people at ease because she has a personality to her, so we're going to miss that.

Anytime that you -- every year you have a different team, and all of them have different personalities and different ways that they do things. This was a great group because they had such great balance, from Grace Berger, who doesn't say much, to Nikki who says too much sometimes, and Ali is kind of in between and so forth.

This has just been a dynamite group to be able to coach the last two years.

Q. You do have Grace and Mackenzie coming back. How do you guys take the next step off this and build off two straight weekends where you're in the second week of the NCAA Tournament?

TERI MOREN: Well, the work continues, but it is nice that we have two players in Grace Berger and Mack that are going to be now obviously the example. Ali has been there for us and now the two of them will take over in the leadership role for us. Obviously we got great minutes from Chloe Moore-McNeil this season. She's going to continue to get better. We.

Feel really good about the incoming class we have. So our work will continue to keep building this thing because we've checked off a lot of things in terms of goals that we've had for our program, but there are still many other goals that we want to be able to check off in our time here at Indiana.

You have to have great players to do that and great staff, and I know I have a great staff, and I know I have a great core group that's going to be returning to us. Now it's just trying to fit all those pieces together because it will be different a year from now, or I should say a couple months from now when we get back together.

Q. I wanted to ask you about a hidden moment earlier in the game I wrote down. You were up 18-13, and then you missed a loose ball, they got a three to make it 18-16, they hit another three-point play to make it 19-18, you stayed in the game for a while, and it really got away in the second half, but how big of a turning point was that when you had them a little bit on their heels early?

TERI MOREN: Well, we expected to come in, and the goal was to get them on their heels early. This is a veteran group. They're an experienced group. We've been in big moments before, played a lot of really, really great teams.

I knew that this group was going to come in -- my guys were going to come in and not blink. We were here to win the game.

I loved the start. I really did. I loved the start we got off to. I didn't like the third quarter. If I could have that one back, that's what I'd want back, the third quarter.

Q. Ali, with all her emotion, looked like you were pretty emotional watching her talk, and on top of that, how much does it mean to you for her to go out with the game she had today?

TERI MOREN: She did. She did. As I said last week after we beat Princeton at home, to get to back to back Sweet 16s, Tyra Buss, Amanda Cahill were able to do it in '18 when we won the NIT championship win on their home floor, and then you fast forward and you get a kid like Ali and Nikki and Leks and Waggs that can say they won their last game on their home floor to do something of the magnitude that the Sweet 16 presents for us. Or to the magnitude.

It's great. I'm so happy, especially for A.P. because she's an Indiana kid through and through, native. The leader for our team. You just want that. You want all your kids to not only have success, but for her it hits a little bit different because of just what she's meant. And again, just being that native that chose to come back and represent me and our team.

Q. Obviously you said it yourself, it's going to look different next year, and even though you have Mack and Grace coming back, with so many key players leaving now, what do you think the legacy of this era of Indiana women's basketball is?

TERI MOREN: Well, I hope, again, it's just -- you know, I think the legacy -- we've been able to do -- accomplish something that we set out eight years ago when we got here. We've had a lot of moments where we can check them off. Like historical moments, right, inside of our program, and to be able to get to back to back Sweet 16s, this is something that these guys are going to have forever.

You can talk about the games and perhaps coming up short, but the thing that this group is going to have is they're going to have a lot of stories to tell each other, and the experience and the memories they're going to have are going to last forever.

Although today hurts and we're disappointed, like I said, the work still continues. We got to the Elite Eight last year, we're disappointed we didn't get there this year, but now we'll turn around.

And our goals will be high once again for our program, and the standards will stay what they are. But they were cemented by the kids like the Ali Patbergs and the Leks and the Nikki that really believed in the vision but also really have believed in just the work that it takes.

Q. I want to say you talked about where you reached to last year, and this year you didn't get as far, but even though -- your team is at that next level. It took like two Power Five teams to get you out. In your tournament it took Iowa, and in this tournament it took UConn. Do you feel that your team gets the respect that it deserves?

TERI MOREN: That's a great question. Here's what I'll say because it's an opportunity to talk about the Big Ten. I think the Big Ten lacks the respect nationally that the league deserves, and I don't want to talk about individuals because you guys -- we talk about the Kate Clarks and the Naz -- because there's so many great players. I could go down every team in the Big, and we could talk about the kids that they have, those players.

What I would like to see is you have -- I don't know how Michigan is doing, but we had, what, four teams that went back to the Sweet 16 this season? And yet we're still not talked about enough.

So if I could do one thing, that is to make sure that everybody -- all you beat writers and sportswriters, you realize that the Big Ten is so good, and we beat up on each other night in and night out, and we have terrific players, we have terrific coaches, and we're still fighting for national respect.

Last year we did it. We had four teams in the Sweet 16. This year we did it, and we're still fighting.

What we'll do is we'll keep beating up on each other, but we're still going to keep fighting for the national respect that this league deserves because there's just so many great players, so many great coaches.

I'm not sure what else we have to do to garner that type of respect, but when I sit up here and tell you that we play in -- if it's not the best league, it's dang near close to being the best league in the country night in and night out.

And we beat up on each other, but we also prepare each other for these moments. Even though we came up short again tonight against UConn, we were prepared for these moments, this moment today because of our conference, the Iowas, the Marylands, the Ohio States, the Michigans. They prepare us for these moments.

Q. Just to expand upon that question, you've been coaching for a long time. I'm curious if you can walk me through how you believe the way women's college basketball has been received by a mainstream audience and sort of how that has changed over time and what are some of the starkest examples of those changes.

TERI MOREN: Well, I think the starkest is just the coverage now, right, that the women's -- that our league, our sport has gotten. When I say media attention, it's -- now to be on ESPN is not a big deal because back in the day when I played, and that was a long time ago, ESPN was a far-fetched idea, right, to have a women's game on the Deuce or ESPN or even now, CBS. I think the media, that's been the starkest difference.

I think the players, more athletic, more talented than ever. The product that we're putting on TV, the product that we're putting on the floor is exciting, and I think everybody, if you have an opportunity to watch women's basketball, whether it's on TV and even for us when people come to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall for the first time, they didn't know that, gosh, these women play really, really good basketball.

So I just think it's been the interest. Social obviously helps, the social media, Twitter, all of that has changed quite a bit, but it's also helped in a way.

But to say that I think that the trajectory of where we were and where we have -- the direction we're going is really exciting, I think, for us and for women's basketball.

I'll tell you this: We sure deserve it.