BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 6, 2025

Teri Moren

Sydney Parrish

Yarden Garzon

Gainbridge Fieldhouse

Indiana Hoosiers

Postgame Press Conference

Indiana - 78, Oregon - 62

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with Indiana's press conference, which features Coach Teri Moren, Sydney Parrish, and Yarden Garzon.

Coach, if you would go ahead and make an opening statement.

TERI MOREN: It was a great first game for us today. I thought a month or so ago, when we went out to Oregon, did not play our best. We knew there were a couple categories that we had to win today.

I thought our turnovers stayed low, which was going to be important, our ability to rebound the ball was going to be -- was going to have to be there as well. On a game where there's a lot of funkiness with the fouls called and us having to play small and play without two of our 5s, I thought Faith came in as a freshman and did some really great things and helped us hang on until we could get to the fourth.

Yarden obviously got herself into some foul trouble too. So being without her somewhat, always a challenge not having her on the floor, but I thought Lexie Bargesser came in and did a great job of helping, particularly in the first half.

Did a lot of really good things today. Really happy for our group. This is, like I said, it's not very often that you have an opportunity to get a do-over, and for us we had that opportunity today. I loved how our kids came out and fought for 40 minutes.

Q. Sydney, the defensive effort off the top of the game, Oregon had seven turnovers, I think, in the first five minutes. What was the defensive plan? From your point of view, how did you guys kind of embrace the execution of it?

SYDNEY PARRISH: We definitely executed, I think, amazing on the defensive end. We knew they were bigger than us in some aspects. We needed a couple times to throw second bodies at their post players. It was an emphasis this week going into the Big Ten Tournament that defense helps our offense.

I think that we really bought into that this week before coming here, and I think it showed today. We knew we had to throw the first punch, have the most energy. We had an amazing crowd of Hoosiers fans, and I think that helped us also on the defensive end.

We just threw the first punch right out of the gate and never let up.

Q. Did you get mad at all early in the game when you woke up and had all those fouls on you? You're smiling right now, but did you feel that at all, a little irritable, a little frustrated by what was going on there and how you can break out of it?

YARDEN GARZON: Yeah, I want to be on the court to help my teammates. I want to be there to help my team. Maybe I didn't agree with some of the fouls, but that's fine. That's part of the game.

Yeah, but I just want to be out there to help my team to win. So it's frustrating to watch the game from the bench.

Q. Sydney, what was it like for you playing your old team here in Indy, and how badly did you want another crack at them after the way the game went in Eugene?

SYDNEY PARRISH: It's always fun getting to compete against your old team. I think a lot of transfers feel that sometimes. It's nice to be able to come to Indy and play. I'm from Indy, so it was kind of like it felt good to play my last game against Oregon. It felt like home, it felt like a Hoosier crowd, and that was really fun.

It was just a good feeling to get another crack at them, mostly because we watched the game that we played at Oregon, and we were very, very poor defensively, offensively, turnovers. It was a big emphasis in the fourth quarter in Eugene, we turned it over, I think it was ten times in the fourth, and we only turned it over one time in the fourth today.

Just watching back this week, the film when we played at Oregon, it was just so sad seeing how bad we played. So we knew that we were going to come out and play much better. I knew we would get them the second time.

Q. Sydney, you kind of talked about how your defense kind of fed into your offense today. It felt like a lot of those outlet passes that you guys had were an emphasis for you guys. What does it do for you when you're getting out quickly on offense and getting earlier shots in the shot clock?

SYDNEY PARRISH: It helps us tremendously. We always say we're best when we're playing fast, getting the ball out fast, and hitting it ahead. I think we had 20 points off their turnovers. That just shows how handsy we were on the defensive end, and then we're executing on the offensive end then. So that really helped us.

Q. Sydney, can you talk about the challenge of what Faith had to face today? Only played eight minutes the last two months, played ten minutes today. What's that like from a player's perspective, and how are you able to, when you look up in the second quarter, the veterans in the third quarter try to keep everything emotionally stable when you guys are missing so many key pieces?

SYDNEY PARRISH: I think Faith has stayed ready all year. I think she's always the first player in the gym every single day, even though she doesn't play most games. She is still working out every single day, working on her craft, getting better, and she's taken the responsibility of, hey, maybe I won't get in a lot of these games, but I'm still going to be prepared, be ready, and step up when it's needed.

You never know when your number is going to be called. We had really bad foul trouble with our 5s today. She came in. I think she was a little scared at first, but she boxed out, rebounded, had two charges. She was a crucial part in our win today, especially because Oregon's interior game is so tall. I was super proud of her.

I think we all were surrounding her in the right moments, and I think she started to come down coming into the second half. She did an amazing job for us, and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Q. Yarden, Oregon crawled back within about five, I think, with six or seven minutes left in the game. What really sparked you guys out on the floor to be able to turn it up and to keep moving forward and to grow the lead?

YARDEN GARZON: I feel like we all remembered what happened last game. In the last quarter, we didn't do a good job, and we kind of lost our head, and we wanted to fix that today and come out different.

I feel like we all felt the urge to win this game. We want to keep playing. We want to play with our seniors. We love our seniors, and we want to keep playing with them. I feel like it was a good do-over for us from last game.

Q. Sydney, you mentioned you wanted to punch them in the mouth after the situation in Oregon. You were one of three players that played 34, 35, 36 minutes. Did you notice them wearing down at the end? Your thoughts on how the game ended here this afternoon.

SYDNEY PARRISH: I think we've been trained all year we sometimes have a short bench, and we play really -- our starting five plays really high minutes. I think we've trained ourself and conditioned ourselves throughout the season to be able to play those high minutes and be able to beat teams in the fourth quarter, and we pride ourselves on that.

That was the biggest lead we had in the fourth quarter. Yeah, I think we did start to wear them down. When we saw that they kind of took a step back in the fourth quarter, we started running even harder and started getting downhill and started to get to the free-throw line.

I think that was what we kept saying when we got in the middle of huddles. We need to keep running on them, don't let them get back in it, so yeah.

Q. Coach, just wanted to ask how you always talk about how you have to practice, how you have to play. You've got to bring it when you're on the floor inside the hall or not, but today felt different. How does that help you in game, and how is that going to help you tomorrow?

TERI MOREN: Again, a lot of things have to travel. Some might say this is like a home game for us just because of our fans being able to come and watch us, but defensively, your defense has to travel, your offensive execution has to travel. You have to be able to have laser focus on not just the game plan defensively, but also offensively in terms of how we feel like we can take advantage of the opponent and score.

Somebody had asked about our pace. I thought the pace we needed to play at today needed to be far greater than it was in Oregon, just, again, watching it, very sluggish. I don't know if it was the travel. We can't make excuses for that.

I do think we are better when we're hitting the ball ahead and we're playing fast. We're sharing the ball. I thought Shay came out. I think she had 11 points in the first quarter. She was very aggressive.

So that's what we wanted our guys to do. We wanted them to play fast, but we also wanted them to be very aggressive today.

Q. Teri, you look back on the game at Eugene, Yarden kind of touched on this, but have you seen the resilience and comfortability in these late-game situations with this team grow over the past couple months and throughout the season?

TERI MOREN: You know, she has a lot to do with it, Syd has a lot to do with it. When they started squeezing into our lead, Syd hit that big shot in the corner. Yarden comes off an easy pin-down screen and hits the big three to help us continue to get separation.

In those moments, you have to have a lot of guts to be able to take big shots, especially when teams start coming back and catching up. You only maybe have that five-point lead or ten-point lead. It's like you want to keep building it, but you have to have the players to be able to stick shots when needed.

Again, I thought -- again, I thought Lexie was so good in the first half too. We got into foul trouble and had to sit Yarden a lot, so it came from a lot of different people today. Lilly came in and gave us great minutes. We've already talked about Faith, but Strip, that really put us at a disadvantage from a size -- but we decided we were going to play small, which probably helped us too because we became even more aggressive.

We could run our motion because we have four guards out there, which was kind of fun to do too. We don't play that way very often.

Q. Similar question about Faith, just the challenges that she faced kind of going almost two months with only eight minutes. How does that affect you as a coach? You mentioned going small obviously changed your style, but anything you're kind of nervous about doing, or you have the full confidence in her from a coaching perspective, when you have to go to her unexpectedly, what does that do for you?

TERI MOREN: I think Syd said it best, we talk always about you just never know. You always have to stay ready and be ready when your number is called.

Again, she said it. Faith is a kid that comes in, she does extra work, she's in the gym. In spite of maybe not getting a lot of minutes in Big Ten play, she's a kid that's building for her future here at Indiana.

That's what I've really admired about her. Sometimes when kids don't get the time, it's easy for them to choose not to come in that gym every day and try to keep getting better, and Faith has not been that kid. We've had a lot of them that have come through our program. But really proud of just how she, like I said, just helped us hang on there.

And Syd's probably right, the nerves have to -- I'm sure they were there for her, especially early, but I think she ended up finally settling in a little bit and I think realizing that I can play in this game. I deserve to be here. You have to trust that. You've got to trust that.

But was there nerves? There's always nerves. I don't care who's in the game. This is a really great Oregon team. We came up short to them a couple months ago. We understand this. If you lose today, we go home. So I don't know that nerves are a bad thing. I think nerves mean that you're ready.

I thought, like I said, going back to Faith, though, very, very proud of what she was able to do today for us.

Q. Teri, I know you have chuckled before when Yarden was talking about the officiating. First, if you have any thoughts on that. Also, just what's the challenge for you in kind of managing the foul trouble you all accrued. Obviously you had to go to Faith with the fouls that Karoline and Lilly racked up. What's the challenge for you with the on the fly adjustments, how long do I leave Faith in there, can I put these guys back in with three, four fouls? What's the challenging with balancing all of that?

TERI MOREN: That's when you have a good staff or a great staff that's over there telling you when you can, because I probably want to get them in a little bit sooner.

Again, I think Yarden said it best. It is part of the game. For us, sometimes you have to adjust. Whether or not we agree, we disagree, they've got a hard job, the officials, and that was a very physical game. I don't -- last thing I would ever want to do is be an official.

It is hard to try to manage -- we haven't been in this situation all year where we've had two 5s on the bench the way we had today. Whether it's sometimes in losses, but also when you can win a game the way we did, you learn a lesson every time you're in between the lines.

I thought for us, like I said, this is great experience for Faith. As we move on and she moves on in our program, just to understand that Coach has been saying it, but it really did happen, it came true today that I had to be ready when my number was called.

Q. Teri, the defensive effort off the top of the game, Sydney talked a little bit about how important it was to come out with that level of effort. Just the psychological effect on Oregon, they're not a high-scoring team in the first place, but what was -- how pleased were you with the way that that kind of transpired at the start of the game?

TERI MOREN: They may not be a high-scoring team, but where they concern you is how physical they are, right? I think our charge, or my charge for our kids was, look, we're playing against a physical team, an aggressive team. We've got to be that too, like we have to be strong with the ball, we have to be strong in our cuts, we have to be strong in our entry passes, getting open and so forth.

But we also have to -- because Deja Kelly is so good coming off high ball screens, their motion that they run really puts a lot of pressure on you, whether coming off chase action or coming off a wide staggered screen or a wide pin-down, they're very efficient. Although they may not score a lot of points, they can put pressure on you if you're not careful.

Again, I put my money on Chloe all the time defensively that she can guard the best. I thought Shay did a great job. I thought Lexie came in, again, and did a terrific job. Then Yarden. Our guards have to be great defenders because that's who they rely on, even though when 15 comes in, they're trying to put that thing inside.

For a majority of the time, this team has won because of their guard play.

Q. I'm not sure if you've had the time this week to go back and watch your game against USC, but just from what you can remember, what needs to be different tomorrow for you to take them down?

TERI MOREN: I've watched just the first maybe quarter and a half because we were so focused on Oregon. I do feel like a couple things: We put them at the free-throw line too much, so we can't foul. And then we've got to be able to hit shots. The quarter and the half that I did see, we got some good shots, just didn't go down.

Build a lead, and then we kind of lost the lead because we put them at the free-throw line.

So what we'll tell our kids, and we tell after every opponent, they don't need your help. Quit fouling them. Don't put them at the line. Make them have to earn everything.

Again, it's another shot at -- are they No. 1 right now still? No. 2? At one of the best teams in the country that has one of the best players in the country. Kiki Iriafen's not too far behind. She's a load too. This is a really good USC team. We have a tremendous amount of respect for them. We know this, it's going to take our very best.