{"id":279174,"date":"2025-10-05T09:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279174\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T09:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T09:10:10","slug":"this-indiana-womens-basketball-leader-stepped-up-to-protect-our-locker-room-after-issues-last-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279174\/","title":{"rendered":"This Indiana women’s basketball leader stepped up to ‘protect our locker room’ after issues last season"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLOOMINGTON \u2014 Indiana women\u2019s basketball<\/a> coach Teri Moren<\/a> spent much of her media day news conference breaking down her new-look roster.<\/a><\/p>\n

She\u2019s optimistic the group will jell together in the coming weeks as they get additional practice reps. It\u2019s a more athletic squad than she\u2019s had in recent years, but it lacks some of the 3-point shooting depth that\u2019s been one of the program\u2019s hallmarks.<\/p>\n

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Moren expressed excitement about some of those new pieces IU<\/a>\u2019s coaching staff brought in, from freshman Nevaeh Caffey<\/a>\u2019s defensive prowess to UCLA transfer Zania Socka-Nguemen<\/a>\u2019s unique skill set in the front court.<\/p>\n

Before wrapping up the 17-minute presser, Moren offered an interesting aside about last year\u2019s team while discussing who she thinks will step into a leadership role this season.<\/p>\n

“We always talk about protecting our locker room,\u201d Moren said. \u201cA year ago, our locker room was not in very good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reveal was an extension of what Moren told The Herald-Times over the summer about 2024-25 being one of the most challenging seasons of her career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Indiana women’s team culture took a hit amidst last year’s struggles<\/p>\n

Moren didn\u2019t offer any specific details about last year\u2019s locker room dynamics, but IU guards Shay Ciezki<\/a> and Len\u00e9e Beaumont<\/a>, the team\u2019s veteran-most returners, didn\u2019t shy away from the topic.<\/p>\n

Ciezki, who joined IU as a transfer from Penn State last season, described an interesting dynamic in the locker room where the players were friendly off the court, but struggled with having \u201chard conversations\u201d as the losses piled up during the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cLosing puts strain on teams,\u201d Ciezki said. \u201cWhen we go on the road and lose two, it puts an automatic strain on the locker room. I don’t think we were able to bounce back good enough from the losses, and just forget about it. I think that puts a strain on a lot of the relationships. I think it’s tough, I don’t think people understand the pressure we all put on ourselves, the team, the coaches and our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Indiana went two straight seasons from 2022-24 without losing consecutive games. The Hoosiers lost at least two consecutive games on four separate occasions last season.<\/p>\n

Beaumont saw cracks surfacing after IU lost games to Harvard and Butler right out of the gate. The Hoosiers turned it over 27 times in the loss to the Crimson that ended their 18-game win streak at Assembly Hall.<\/p>\n

“We are a program used to success and winning,\u201d Beaumont said. \u201cWe had a lot of games that didn’t go our way, games that we dropped. It’s not typical for Indiana to drop. Everyone says it, winning games helps fix all your issues, losses people can tend to fall apart a little bit and not always stay together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indiana\u2019s struggles down the stretch also gave rise to players worrying about their individual performance and roles on the team. The Hoosiers managed to reach 20 wins for the tenth straight season, but barely finished above .500 in the Big Ten.<\/p>\n

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Insider: <\/strong>‘Most challenging’ year of decade of IU women’s basketball had coach Teri Moren ponder future<\/a><\/p>\n

IU women\u2019s basketball guard Len\u00e9e Beaumont steps into the spotlight<\/p>\n

Beaumont, who is a former Illinois Misss Basketball, admitted she felt \u201chelpless\u201d at times, especially in the back half of the season when she wasn\u2019t traveling with the team. She suffered a preseason knee injury that sidelined her for the season.<\/p>\n

She also spent long hours away from her teammates when they were in Bloomington as her rehab ramped up. They would be practicing while she spent much of her time working with the training staff.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was an experience that I was grateful to have gone through because I got to learn, OK, a year from now if I’m the leader of this locker room or the voice people are going to turn to, how can I make sure we are all on the same page?” Beaumont said.<\/p>\n

With Sydney Parrish<\/a> and Chloe Moore-McNeil<\/a> graduating, Moren knew IU needed someone to step up and get all the new faces on the roster on the same page. She pushed Beaumont to fill that void.<\/p>\n

The early returns have been extremely positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of it has to do with Len\u00e9e Beaumont and her making sure that this is a healthy environment, a healthy locker room, and we are all in alignment with our goals and what our standards are,\u201d Moren said.<\/p>\n

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Want more Hoosiers<\/a> coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter<\/strong><\/a>. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana women’s basketball locker room, leaders Shay Ciezki, Lenee Beaumont<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BLOOMINGTON \u2014 Indiana women\u2019s basketball coach Teri Moren spent much of her media day news conference breaking down…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,124156,2862,18655,144292,144293,1317,1337,1338,62,144291,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-279174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-beaumont","10":"tag-indiana","11":"tag-iu","12":"tag-iu-womens-basketball","13":"tag-lenee-beaumont","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-basketball","16":"tag-ncaabasketball","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-teri-moren","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115320784704537345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}