IU head coach Teri Moren sat in her office, in a large chair dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, seated across from IU radio broadcaster Greg Murray, Bloomington Herald Times reporter Jon Blau, Indiana Daily Student reporters Murphy Wheeler and Dylan Wallace and TheHoosier.com reporter Taylor Lehman.
Placed near her, in front of a television mounted on the wall across from her desk, was the newly swiped WNIT Championship trophy. The remnants of the net that once hung over her shoulders during March 31’s postgame press conference rested around the ball that topped the trophy.
Less than two weeks later, she discussed next season with the media:
Have you wrapped your head around the fact that the Tyra Buss and Amanda Cahill era is coming to an end?
“I don’t know that I have quite yet, and only because I gave them all of last week off. I gave them this week off, even though they’ve all been in. We haven’t done any kind of organized workouts with them. I haven’t really seen any of tem. When the summer — or we’ll have a week in between before the dead period or the dead week comes, which is the week before finals. A lot of them are going to go home for the month of May which is a good thing. Hopefully press the reset button and then come back. Probably once June gets here and we’re doing out individual stuff, our group work, it’ll be weird not to have them. They’ve both been around. They’ve been in and out, so I’m seeing them as much as I normally see them. So to say that it’s weird not to see them at all is not accurate right now. And they’ll be around. B (Amanda Cahill) still has — and so does Tyra — still have a semester for student teaching. B wants to student teach and then go overseas to play. Tyra is a little bit undecided right now because she doesn’t know if she’ll be playing in the league or if she’s going to be playing overseas. We haven’t really crossed that bridge with Tyra, but B is pretty set on, ‘I want to student teach, get that done, complete that, and then maybe December, go over and try to play somewhere.’”
Do you want them still around?
“Absolutely. The impact, the example, what they mean for our program. Two of the all-time best. You want your kids ot be around kids like that. I’ve always said tis about them: You want your best players to be your hardest workers. Part of their legacy I think they left here — and you guys were in the press after the game when Bendu described sort of what she’s learned from the both of them — it all hinged on the work, the work ethic that they brought every single day. How they approached practice and how they didn’t take any practices off. They didn’t take plays off. Bendu even said, ‘That wasn’t me. That’s not how I normally practiced. I was able to just kind of get by.’ Tyra and B never ever walked into this place thinking that they could just get by. They brought it every single day. I think that’s what Jaelynn and Linsey Marchese and those young kids in particular. I think they learned a great lesson and in order to have some level of success you have to work awfully hard, and it has to be every day and it has to be every rep and it has to be in every drill. If there’s one thing that I’m most proud of Tyra and B is that they set that example and because of it, our future and the kids that come into this program are always going to know what that looks like. That’s hard. It’s hard to build that. That’s one of the things that I’m going to remember them mostly in terms of what they have done for this program.”
Do you think at about adjusting the way that you schedule?
“We do. We were trying to be intentional on making sure that we have a good blend of some top 25, top 20 or top 50 — we probably overscheduled a little bit. In retrospect, I don’t know. You can look at it in two different ways. You can look at it as it kept you out of the NCAA and/or it really was a great experience for those young kids. The experience that happened early to us, those games that we lost and came up short, what valuable lessons we learned throughout those and how we adjusted and how we became better, whether it was shot selection, whether it was late game situations, decision-making. Defensively, we improved so much because of watching more film and doing more things that we weren’t doing early. Because of it, the experience that those young kids gained is greater for us than the thought that it kept us out of the tournament. But what did we gain by it? We’re not going to look at it as a negative thing. We’ve got to pull the positives, and the positives are that there were some really good basketball lessons that were learned at the front end of our schedule, and they impacted what we were able to do at the end.”
Four years in, how much has this gone to the trajectory that you wanted this Indiana Women’s Basketball program to be?
“You think about our second year here and getting to the Tournament, and we thought, ‘Wow, this is way faster than we thought that was going to happen.’ Our third year we stumble and are left in the NIT, and now our fourth year, we’re left playing in the NIT. Success is not a straight line. There’s up, down, so many twists and turns to it, but to say that we are trending — and I’ve always said this, right or wrong, our first year for us was just, we’ve been here for three years, right? This thing started three years ago. Are we trending in the right direction? I think without question we are. I think they types of kids that we are in the homes of right now and out recruiting are far different than they were even in our second year prior to winning. Now you're seeing the Jaelynn Penns the Grace Bergers, the five stars, those types of kids that are joining our program. I think the biggest holes we’ve got to fill are in the four and five spots. We’ve got great guards and the future is really bright with the Bendus and the Jaelynns and the Keyannas and the Grace Bergers, but we have to make sure that we fill the four and the five spot too.”
How much did the freshmen draw from Tyra and Amanda as far as improvements went and how much did they draw from themselves?
“I will say this about Bendu and Jaelynn first: they’re two rare, confident freshmen. They’re pretty confident, especially Bendu. I think Bendu’s confidence is just out of this world. Jaelynn’s not too far behind her. There were moments where Jaelynn got into her own feelings, but you could get Jaelynn to spiral out of those. Keyanna and Linsey, I don’t think are as confident. They will eventually become pretty confident, but as far as their skillset now we’re making sure that we’re trying to improve that. Bendu and Jaelynn already have a special skillset, whether they can score or shoot it or get to the basket, where Linsey and Key still have room for improvement. The thing about Cahill is Cahill gives everybody good juice. She just senses that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that kid get into anybody’s rear end and say, ‘You’ve got to be so much better.’ She’s the opposite of that. She says, ‘You’re great. You’ve got this. You’re fine.’ The freshmen fed off of B. With Tyra, it’s not that she shuts down, but she gets a little more quiet, so there’s a part of Tyra where you know Tyra’s a little bit more nervous with this situation, like, ‘I don’t know if we can do this.’ Where Cahill is like, ‘We’ve got this.’ We could be down 30, but — ‘We got this.” They’re two different leaders as far as what they provide and gave to our freshmen. One of the things you want is your seniors — and I’m going back many many moons when I was an athlete — you want your seniors to like you. You want to please you seniors. You want them to think you can contribute, you can help them. B and Tyra have put their arms around all of them and made them feel confident and comfortable. They’ve spent time with them in different ways and places. This overall as a group is probably the closest group we’ve had, which also leads to some success.”
Looking ahead, how excited are you to get Brenna (Wise) and Ali (Patberg) involved?
“There’s not two kids we’re more excited about that. But we’re more excited about the completion of this year because it’s finally here. When we do these workouts, they see the light at the end of the tunnel with the fact that now I’m going to play. Where before they were going through all these workouts knowing ‘I’m never going to get a tick.’ I’m going on 24 years of coaching and never have two kids or even one kid — every kid has this grand idea where when they transfer, you’re gonna spend the year saying, ‘This is gonna be great. I’m gonna be in the weight room. I’m gonna be in the gym. I’m gonna improve. I’m gonna do all these things.’ And it doesn’t happen. The only time you see them is when they show up to practice. That has not been these guys. They haven’t missed a day. Haven’t missed a day where they have been on the floor, by themselves or with a coach, and they’re getting an additional workout in before practice. They don’t take any days off. What that tells all of us is that they’re rare. You just don't see it.”
You’ve talked about how important the two freshmen Bendu and Jaelynn are going to be. With Brenna and Ali, which pair do you think will separate themselves and be leaders next year?
“The thing about Brenna, she’s a natural leader. She really is. Bendu and Jaelynn — Jaelynn is very soft-spoken as you guys know. Bendu isn’t outwardly — you’re not going to walk into the gym and hear Bendu’s voice be the loudest one out there. That’s not going to happen. What you can count on is you’re gonna hear Brenna Wise. You’ll hear her every day. We hear her every day now and she’s not even playing. Just a kid that’s enthusiastic in not just playing but about life. Whatever she’s doing in the moment, she is absolutely, one thousand percent in the moment. She and Ali both — the difference between the two of them know they have big shoes to fill as the stretch four and the point guard.The thing we forget about Ali Patberg is she hasn’t played for three years. Brenna just took a year off. Ali Patberg is a much different point guard than Tyra Buss. Brenna Wise is a much different four than Amanda Cahill. The natural leader for su right now? Looks like Brenna Wise.”
“Where B is naturally skilled and tremendous footwork, how they’re most different is Brenna is going to outfight you. She’s gonna work you, she’s gonna muscle you, she’s going to be okay with whatever it takes, it takes. ‘If I have to get in there and fight, I’m gonna fight my fanny off.’ She’s just gonna work you to death. B wasn’t much of a ‘I’m gonna play with my back to the basket’ even though B was phenomenal with her back to the basket. We just didn’t get to see it very often. We never really stuck her in there a whole lot. Not that B wasn’t a fighter, but Brenna is a fighter. She’s going to have to be one of those kids that comes out because she’s exhausted. B could pace herself because she was going to play a lot of minutes, but Brenna’s gonna be one of those kids that you’ll have to take her out because she’s playing so hard.”
Will you miss Amanda as much if not more than Tyra?
“Absolutely. Normally you talk about point guards — they make everybody around them better. Amanda Cahill makes everyone around her better because she can pass, she can shoot, she can put it on the deck, she makes great decisions. You don’t say that about a lot of stretch fours, or any post players for that matter. We’re going to miss her a lot. Not taking anything away from Tyra, but waht we asked Tyra to do was guard the ball. You’ve got one job — guard the ball. We asked B to guard her man, but your man doesn’t shoot it so we also need you to crowd the low block because they’ve got a great five. Purdue — (Tamara) Farquhar and their post player (Ae’Rianna) Harris — we’ve got to keep her from getting the ball. So you’re asking B to basically leave her man, go down and double, but if they do relocate, recover and then guard off the bounce but make her guess the entire game. I don’t have a kid right now on my roster where I can say, ‘Boy, she can do that.’
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.
