This is a continuation of our series of posts breaking down each major hire that IU Vice President and Director of Athletics Fred Glass has made during his tenure. You can find previous and future series entries here.
Fred Glass hired Teri Moren into a program that hadn’t seen the NCAA tournament in over a decade. In just five seasons, Moren has more NCAA tournament wins than every other coach in program history combined.
She sold her new program—without having coached a single game—to two of the most accomplished players in program history. She has signed three five-star recruits in the past two seasons. Essentially, she took the bar of expectations of the Indiana women’s basketball program and raised it with her own two hands.
Her first recruiting class of Tyra Buss and Amanda Cahill turned into IU household names and program-defining, record-breaking players.
She’s not just recruiting high school players—she’s getting transfers that come in and produce at a high level, too. Brenna Wise and Ali Patberg transferred from Pittsburgh and Notre Dame respectively, sat out a season, and became two of the team’s three leading scorers last season. In a college basketball landscape that values transfers more so now than ever before, being able to recruit the transfer market is extremely beneficial.
Going into this upcoming season, the team is carrying perhaps as much momentum as it ever has under Moren. It has another great recruiting class coming in, a slew of talent returning and a bit of a shorter ladder to climb into the upper echelon of the Big Ten compared to previous years. Each season the expectations raise a little and Moren has met them repeatedly.
Even in the two years between NCAA Tournament appearances, the Hoosiers had a resumé good enough to be on the bubble. One season ended in the quarterfinals of the WNIT, and the other ended with a WNIT banner—one that was earned by a outscoring opponents by 102 points during the six-game run.
Next year’s team could easily be Moren’s most dangerous. Every time her name is announced in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall as the head coach, the crowd roars. She’s checked off every prerequisite required to take the next step—recruiting well, solid player development, getting productive transfers, and, you know, winning games (she’s already the second-winningest coach in program history). Will the program take that next step? She’s done everything to suggest she’s capable of it.
Grade: A