Moren inked three high school seniors: Texas natives Bre Wickware and Ria Gulley, along with an in-state product in Darby Foresman. Moren continued her search for strong junior college players, also adding Bailey Broadnax. Broadnax will play her sophomore season at Hill College in Texas this season before transferring to IU with two remaining years of eligibility.
The Texas connection is in large part because of assistant coach Curtis Loyd, a native of the Lone Star state, Moren said. The Texas-to-Indiana connection started last season, when current Hoosier freshman forward Danielle Williams decided to come to Bloomington from Fort Worth.
Ria Gulley, a 5-foot-9 guard from San Antonio, averaged 11.5 points per game as a junior last season at Tom C. Clark High School. Gulley is projected to play as a point guard or as a 2-guard for the Hoosiers. Rated as a three-star recruit by ESPN, Moren noted that Gulley might be one of the most underrated players in the nation.
“Ria is super athletic,” Moren said. “She probably doesn’t get the most credit out of the scouting services, but this kid’s dynamite. Her combination of quickness and shooting ability give her the potential to be one of the best guards in the Big Ten.”
On Wednesday, Gulley’s AAU teammate on DFW Elite, Bre Wickware, also signed to become a Hoosier next season. Wickware, at 6-foot-1, gives IU some future versatility. The Guyer High School senior averaged 15.7 points and 10.2 rebounds last season and was also rated as a three-star recruit by ESPN.
“In Bre, we needed a wing and I like big guards,” Moren said. “She’s going to give us a 6-foot-1 wing on the perimeter and can play at the four-spot. She’s relentless and plays so hard. She crashes the offensive glass and dives for loose balls.”
With 6-foot-3 junior forward Jenn Anderson serving as the only Indiana native on the current roster, Moren’s staff made it an importance to add an in-state player to the roster. Though Indianapolis’ Darby Foresman committed to IU in May 2014 when Curt Miller was the head coach, Moren’s staff was able to keep Foresman’s commitment after Miller’s resignation in July 2014.
Foresman, a 6-foot-3 forward, has led Heritage Christian to a pair of Indiana state championships thus far in her high school career. ESPN ranks Foresman as a four-star recruit, as well as the 11th-best player at her position in the class of 2016. The fact that she hails from Indiana, though, is what sticks out to Moren.
“Darby gives us size and gives us our Indiana kid,” Moren said. “I’ve been really honest in what our goals are here at Indiana — we want to get some of the best Indiana kids to be Hoosiers. That will always be priority number one for us, to get the best players out of this state.”
Moren said Foresman was a familiar face to her because of her time at Indiana State and University of Indianapolis. Moren said she hopes she can continue a consistent trend of recruiting Indiana high school players to Bloomington.
“If you look at our roster, Jenn and Darby will be our only Indiana kids,” Moren said. “Our roster has to look different than that. Winning changes a lot of that. Our hope is that we can get this program headed in the direction that it deserves to go in and then some of the top Indiana kids will want to come here.”
The Hoosiers continued the consistent trend of adding talent via junior college standouts when 6-foot forward Broadnax signed her NLI on Wednesday. As a freshman at Hill College in Texas, Broadnax scored 8.8 points and collected 5.9 rebounds per game. Moren’s staff, specifically assistant coach Todd Starkey, found Broadnax at a junior college event in Florida.
“The thing we liked about Bailey was her experience at the 4-position,” Moren said. “She can also play the 3-spot. The versatility that we have in this class is very exciting. It gives us great depth at every spot and that’s what we’re lacking right now.”
For the 2016-17 season, the Hoosiers will also add 5-foot-7 sophomore guard Tia Elbert, a transfer from Marquette. Elbert averaged 8.6 points for the Golden Eagles last season en route to a spot on the Big East All-Freshman team. The Minnesota native is sitting out a year due to NCAA transfer rules.
“We really feel good about the direction we’re headed in recruiting,” Moren said. “I want to make sure that everybody understands that we’re really exciting with the kid we have in place right now. There’s a lot of people out there that are really excited about our program.”
