After completing a spin move to the left that placed her near the free-throw line, sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola attempted to find junior guard Shay Ciezki at the top of the key. Instead, University of North Carolina sophomore guard Reniya Kelly poked the ball into the backcourt.
Ciezki jogged back to retrieve it, but Kelly dove to the ground and deflected the ball out of bounds.
“Shay, they want this game more,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren yelled on the sideline. “Come on!”
Indiana women’s basketball was already down 12 points to No. 16 University of North Carolina midway through the third quarter. The play perhaps perfectly signified what the Hoosiers didn’t have as they ultimately lost 69-39 to the Tar Heels on Monday in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game at Imperial Arena in Nassau, Bahamas.
“We just didn’t have the urgency we needed to today to get out and create any sort of resistance for them offensively, and so that’s disappointing,” Moren said postgame. “And then we couldn’t get anything really, no rhythm, offensively.”
Both squads got off to a rather slow start in the first quarter — they each shot 4 for 16 from the field — as North Carolina led by just 1.
But in the second quarter, the Tar Heels turned it on. They were deadly from beyond the arc over the 10 minutes, finishing 6 for 7 on long balls.
It appeared North Carolina would enter halftime with a 9-point advantage after junior guard Trayanna Crisp drained her third triple of the quarter. But Indiana responded.
Sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola, who made her first career start Monday as graduate student guard Sydney Parrish was out with a left knee injury, sank a 3-pointer with just three seconds until the break. LaMendola played “hard” in Parrish’s absence, Moren said.
Could the shot have given the Hoosiers the momentum as they headed into the locker room?
Nope.
The Tar Heels began the third quarter on a tear. Whether it was draining three 3-pointers, forcing six turnovers or outrebounding Indiana 12-3, North Carolina took complete control. It scored 22 points in the period, while its suffocating defense allowed just 7.
In the Hoosiers’ previous two losses to Harvard University on Nov. 7 and Butler University on Nov. 13, it was all about their lack of physicality. Indiana failed to match either squad’s physical nature.
On Monday, it was more of the same.
“They were physical with us,” Moren said. “We didn’t handle that well. Teams that have been like that with us, I think about Harvard — really physical with us. Carolina, again, really physical with us, and we’re just not responding, not handling ourselves in those scenarios well enough right now.”
For a team that relies on numerous veterans — like graduate student guard Chloe Moore-McNeil, Parrish and junior guard Yarden Garzon — being without Parrish certainly could have played a role in it.
“We obviously missed Syd today,” Moren said. “It’s going to be another adjustment period because we don’t know how much longer Syd’s going to be out.”
Over the past two seasons, the Hoosiers have dealt with substantial injuries to integral players. Guard Grace Berger missed eight games with a knee injury in 2022-23 and Parrish suffered a broken foot that sidelined her for seven games last season.
It’s forced Indiana to find different ways to win games with irregular lineups. With Parrish’s uncertain status moving forward, the Hoosiers could face the same dilemma this season.
“We’ll have to get to Bloomington and start to figure out how we can move our pieces around and how we can put a five on the floor that can hopefully jell quicker than we’ve been able to,” Moren said. “I thought we made some improvements — we grew a little bit here in the Bahamas.”
Moore-McNeil, who finished with 8 points, three rebounds and three turnovers, certainly understands what it’s like to play without a crucial piece. She could have attributed Monday’s 30-point loss to that, but she didn’t.
“I take full responsibility as one of our leaders because I can’t allow that to happen,” Moore-McNeil said. “The coaches, they can get on us all they want and hype us up and keep us positive, but at the end of the day, it’s got to be on us as players to get it together.”
The Hoosiers now sit at 4-3 and finished runners-up in the Battle 4 Atlantis. They notched their second ranked win of the season over then-No. 18 Baylor University on Sunday.
Moren said she was happy with how her squad battled to make it to the championship, and she also felt Indiana “grew a little bit” over the three games.
But the Hoosiers head back to Bloomington with their fewest number of points scored, 39, since Jan. 28, 2013 — two seasons before Moren was hired ahead of 2014-15.
“That wasn’t us today,” Moore-McNeil said. “That wasn’t us at all.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
