Top 10 Indiana Athletics moments of 2022-23 No. 10: Sydney Parrish transfers in

Now that summer is here, we’ve decided to look back on the 2022-23 Indiana Athletics season to find some of the best moments from across the department.

Honestly it’s pretty difficult to decide on a Top 10 given the highly successful spring season for Indiana with the basketball, baseball and softball teams all moving onto the NCAA Tournament, with the latter two breaking appearance droughts.

We sought out your help and many of you answered. We’re looking forward to how this list turns out and seeing what you guys think. I mean, there are worse things to potentially disagree about than cool things that Indiana did.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

Words cannot really do justice to Sydney Parrish’s career at Hamilton Southeastern High School. She was the kind of player that kept coaches and opposing defenders awake the night before a game and alert every second of gameday.

As a junior, Parrish averaged 21.0 points, 6.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.9 steals per game en route to leading the Royals all the way to the Indiana Class 4-A State title game. She didn’t stop on the biggest stage either, scoring 30 points and bringing in 10 rebounds in the championship victory.

It was to the point that, coming out of halftime with a 2-point deficit against Lawrence North, Parrish’s teammates literally told her to take over the game. And, well, 30 of HSE’s 55 points would do that.

ESPN ranked Parrish as the No. 2 guard and No. 8 player overall in the country in the class of 2020. Offers from the likes of Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland, South Carolina, Iowa and Oregon poured in.

She ultimately chose the Ducks, who had five other 5-star recruits set to join the program. Of those five, Parrish was the highest ranked. Parrish started four games during her first two years in Eugene. Her role was primarily off the bench with an ability to do a bit of everything from scoring, rebounding and defense.

She entered the transfer portal following her sophomore year. To much fanfare from the state and fanbase, she chose Indiana, which was coming off of a Sweet Sixteen appearance and an Elite Eight before that.

Much like Oregon, she began her Indiana career coming off of the bench. She earned a starting spot seven games into the season and didn’t look back from there, becoming a key contributor for her 3-point shooting, rebounding and overall tenacity on the court.

Parrish also seemingly fit in immediately. She paid mind to Indiana’s established culture built by figures like Mackenzie Holmes, Grace Berger, Chloe Moore-McNeil and those who came before, acting as a leader in her own right on and off the court.

If you saw Parrish, you probably wouldn’t have guessed this was her first year with the program based on her established chemistry with teammates and coaches on and off the floor.

She brings the same competitive energy and drive as everyone else on the roster, which serves to help fuel one another be it on the court or from the bench.

She was exactly the kind of fit that works at Indiana, being a high school legend in the state is a plus. As the only player on the roster from Indiana, Parrish especially brought it for rivalry games against Purdue, shushing the Mackey Arena crowd during the first matchup with the Boilermakers back in February.

She’ll continue being a key piece for Indiana moving forward and has a chance to end her Hoosiers career as an all-time Indiana basketball great, her name being spoken of with others like Tyra Buss, Aleksa Gulbe, Nicole Cardaño-Hillary, Brenna Wise, Amanda Cahill and Grace Berger.