BIG TEN BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 11, 2022

Teri Moren

Indiana Hoosiers

Women's Head Coach

KEVIN WARREN: Our next coach to the stage is Teri Moren, who is the head women's basketball coach at Indiana University. She does so much on the court and in the community implementing an event called Candy Stripe Crew, which is a clinic hosted by the Hoosiers women's basketball program for children and adults who are struggling with disabilities.

She's gone to back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances. I know she's excited about this season. I have a special relationship with IU basketball; that was the first basketball game I attended as commissioner.

When you think about family, there's so many people. Again, I just want to thank Mai Davis, who has been my executive assistant for 32 years, and Emily Rooney here today who keeps my life straight. When I think of family, I think of Indiana, Emily, Mai, but most of all I think of Coach Teri Moren.

TERI MOREN: Good morning. It's great to be here. It's time again for another exciting basketball season in Big Ten women's basketball.

We are grateful that we are part of it. We have an interesting team coming back with seven veterans, then the seven new faces we have. To say that we're excited, we're very excited about the season starting.

We just look forward to another competitive Big Ten Conference and an exciting finish, as it's been the last couple years.

Thank you to the media. Thank you to Kevin and his staff at the Big Ten who always put on a first-class event. I'm grateful to be here to represent Indiana and our women's basketball program. I look forward to the rest of the day spending time with you guys in the media.

Q. I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the transfer portal, the ability to add a player like Sara, who might have been the best player at Minnesota, immediately to an already good team, how that changes how you recruit.

TERI MOREN: Sure, I appreciate the question.

I think the transfer portal is an interesting thing that's happening right now in athletics. I think there are some really good pieces to it, there's some frustrating pieces to it.

We have benefited from the portal. I would be lying if I told you we haven't. I think it's going to stay, so we all have to adapt, just like a lot of things that are happening right now in athletics.

We're excited about Sara joining our basketball team. We obviously had to play against her. We had to do scouting reports for a young lady like Sara. So we're excited that she's joining us.

Here is what I will say. I don't think we're a program that wants to be a team full of kids that are all transfers. We still want the traditional four-year high school kid. I do think there's something special about being able to blend the two together. Certainly the portal does give you some instant experience.

Yeah, we'll keep looking. But to say we're a program that wants to be made up of all transfers, that's not the case for us. We really like the combination of the two.

Q. Hotly contested race last year for the top in the Big Ten. How do you see the strength of the league at the top this year?

TERI MOREN: Well, again, as I mentioned in my opening statement, it's going to be a competitive race once again. Obviously we understand that Iowa is at the top of it. They return everybody. They're fantastic. Well-coached.

I think the rest of us will be chasing after that. But the great thing about the parity in our league, proven night in, night out, there's no game that's safe, right? If you're talking at the top or the bottom, the bottom is making strides and they're going to compete every single night.

I think we would be remiss if anybody felt like they could come up here and say we could go into any contest in the Big Ten and just show up. You better show up ready to play. If you don't, you have an opportunity to come up short that night if you're not ready to play.

This is a great league. Again, once again, I think we're proving across the country how good of a league it is. I think we're still fighting for people to look at this league and consider it one of the best with some of the best players in the country.

Q. You talked about the balance between transfers and high school recruits. How do you make the decision in terms of where to invest your energy?

TERI MOREN: Well, this is where our staff... I have one of the best staffs in the country. I think we really pay attention to our needs. It's always need-based on who we're losing. If we have missed on one of those four-year high schoolers.

I think we're very intentional. We look at our board, our depth chart, and decide this is going to be our needs coming up, whether it's the next year or whether it's the following year.

I think we are very, very intentional about who's going to fit us, first and foremost, and what our needs are going to be for, like I said, the next year and the year following.

But it is a balance. There's no question. As we know, these kids are in the portal for a reason. Most of them are looking for playing time. So I think there is a fine balance for what you have already in place and adding those new kids also to the fold.

Q. I flew from out west because I think the Big Ten has it going on as far as women's basketball is concerned. You're coming off back-to-back trips to the Sweet 16. How have you changed as a coach since your time at Indiana?

TERI MOREN: Wow. First of all, thank you for being here. We appreciate your support from coming out west.

Again, this is not about me. This is always just been about the players that are in this program. As I alluded to, we have the best staff, I have the best staff.

I think it's been just a process for us to build this thing the way we've wanted it to look. When we set out nine years ago, we wanted Indiana to have tradition not only on the men's side but on the women's side. I think we've really been, again, I use the word 'intentional', kind of brick-by-brick mentality about the people we've asked to come into our program. That's been very important to us, the chemistry piece, the character piece, their wanting to be a good student first.

We've also been able to mesh these pieces together that have really been about our team. Even though we have great players like Mackenzie Holmes and Grace Bergers and the Ali Patbergs that have been in our program, they've always been able to set aside their egos to be just about the team.

Again, we have a tremendous amount of success with the kids we currently have in our program, but we've also been able to attract kids that are attracted to coming in and being about the team concept. It's more about we than me. If you believe that, then Indiana is a great place for you.

But we have terrific players. Our hashtag is 'work'. We come in and do more than is required from us. It's worked for us. I think we have a recipe. I think the evidence has proven time and time again that what we're doing at Indiana is working for us.

We always say this: Indiana might not be for everybody because of the work piece. But the kids very have found have thrived because they're sort of ate up with the game the way the staff and I are. They love being in the gym. Our staff loves being in the trenches with those kids day in and day out. It's worked for us.

How I've changed? I don't know that I have. The work piece is still really important to me. The character piece is utmost important to me. Just getting good kids in our program and being able also to keep our staff together. The continuity that we've had with our staff has been really important I think to the success that we've had.