IU basketball is typically characterized by the five men’s championship banners hanging at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
There’s the 1976 men’s team that went undefeated, Isiah Thomas leading the Hoosiers to another title in 1981 and Keith Smart's famous shot to win the fifth banner in 1987. The tradition of the men’s program is established, but that of the women's team is still being developed.
Moren is in her third season as IU's head coach, and since she's taken over the team has taken tremendous strides. Just last season, it made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade.
“Everything is about tradition here,” Moren said on “Query and Schultz” last Friday on 97.5 FM in Indianapolis. “What I always tell our prospective student-athletes is that I want to build our own tradition.”
In the interview with radio show hosts Jake Query and Derek Schultz, Moren said she wants to garner more attention and hear her program mentioned in the same sentence as the men's program when people talk about IU basketball. But, there's still a ways to go to get there.
The men's team got to this point because it racked up victories and hung national title banners. In 116 years of men's basketball, the Hoosiers are 1,779-985 with 39 NCAA Tournament appearances and five titles. The women, on the other hand, are 710-605 with five Tournament appearances in their 45 years as a varsity sport.
The women could do the same.
As a player at Purdue, Moren brought the Boilermakers their first Big Ten Championship. In Bloomington a step toward building tradition in the program is beating the team she once played for. The Hoosiers took down Purdue last Thursday in Assembly Hall, marking the third straight home win for IU over its rival.
“That hasn’t happened consistently in many years," Moren said. "Any time you have an in-state rivalry like we do with Purdue, one of the ways you build tradition is every year that is a marquee game that everyone is paying attention to.”
First and foremost, having a coach like Moren to call the shots is crucial. However, a team needs players to go out and execute. Having a leader on the court is a must, and Moren has one in junior guard Tyra Buss.
Buss has latched onto the program. When IU's floor general arrived in Bloomington, she joined a coach-run program, but now both she and Moren describe the Hoosiers as a player-driven group.
The Mt. Carmel, Illinois, native said she came to IU to lay the groundwork for a program that has been largely dormant in a hotbed of basketball for too long, and through her success on the court has helped the IU women's basketball brand grow.
“I wanted to rebuild this program,” Buss said. “When coach came in, she wanted to do the same thing, she wanted to build this culture, she wanted to get Indiana basketball on the rise, put them on the map because when you used to hear Indiana women’s basketball, they were down in the Big Ten. No one heard much about them.”
Buss still has plenty of time left as a Hoosier, and next year she'll be joined by a 2017 recruiting class that's ranked the Big Ten's best by ESPN and prospectnation.com. Five-star recruit Jaelynn Penn headlines that group, and four other three-star players will join her.
Moren and her team’s brand is expanding outside the lines of the Hoosier state, as the five 2017 signees are all from different states.
It’s hard to find a program that garners attention and gains tradition by losing. That’s why Moren knows having consistent success is another key step in the building process.
“It’s also about winning,” Moren said “The goal of getting to the NCAA Tournament like we did a year ago. It’s those steps that everyday, that’s why we step in between these lines is because that’s the ultimate goal.”
This season came with high expectations. With newfound depth and returning star power there was palpable buzz surrounding IU. The Hoosiers were ranked No. 23 to start the season and picked by coaches and media to finish third in the Big Ten in the preseason poll. With a 14-6 record thus far, the Hoosiers are still in contention to reach the NCAA Tournament in consecutive years.
Moren said she wants the seniors who came to IU four seasons ago to have the chance to leave a legacy as a class. Seniors Karlee McBride, Jenn Anderson and Alexis Gassion were the foundation of the rebuilding effort. None were recruited by Moren, but all have bought in. Now they have a chance to snatch another NCAA Tournament bid they so desperately want.
“We talk about winning Big Ten Championships, but for us, we want to send our seniors out, they want to leave a legacy and we want to help them do that by sending them out with the opportunity to play in NCAA tournaments,” Moren said. “We know that kids like Karlee, Jenn and Lex, in particular, that’s why they came to Indiana because they want to build something and wanted to highlight it by getting into the tournament.”
When around the IU women’s basketball program, it’s hard not to feel the positive energy reverberating through the walls of Cook Hall, the practice facility and Assembly Hall. There’s a storm brewing and the team is motivated to keep it going.
“Now that we’re on the rise and competing for the top spot in the Big Ten, that shows what we’re trying to do here as a team,” Buss said. “The coaching staff believes in us, and we believe in them. It’s a great feeling.”
