Chloe Moore-McNeil poked away the pass, dove on the floor to secure the ball and then found Shay Ciezki as she headed up the court.
Ciezki, a junior guard, smiled as she approached the basket. Meanwhile, Moore-McNeil sat on the ground near midcourt, taking Ciezki’s play all in. As Ciezki laid the ball in, sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola walked toward the graduate student guard and helped her off the floor.
After Indiana women’s basketball fell to Butler University on Nov. 13, graduate student guard Sydney Parrish said it was on her and Moore-McNeil to lead the team.
That’s just what Moore-McNeil did Sunday, finishing with a game-high 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting from the field in the Hoosiers’ 79-66 victory over No. 24 Stanford University inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
“When Chloe shoots the ball the way she did today, and she’s aggressive like that, we look like a whole different basketball team,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said postgame. “I think we can all agree with that.”
Through the Hoosiers’ first three games, Moore-McNeil's assertiveness was nowhere to be seen. Moren called her out after the season-opening win over Brown University on Nov. 4, saying the veteran played “lethargic.”
Moore-McNeil followed it with a pair of games against Harvard University on Nov. 7 and Butler in which she scored just 17 total points, went 4 for 13 from the field and accumulated five turnovers.
On Sunday, Moore-McNeil began with an early 3-pointer to respond to Stanford scoring first. After 10 minutes of play, the Greenfield, Tennessee, native already notched 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting from the field alongside two steals and a pair of made free throws.
“The assertiveness is having a more assertive mentality being a fifth year,” Moore McNeil said. “I just brought it on myself today.”
Moore-McNeil was rather quiet during the second quarter with just 2 points, but that’s when the Hoosiers seized control of the game.
Indiana went on a 14-0 run over the middle stretch of the period as junior guard Yarden Garzon drilled a pair of 3-pointers alongside two makes at the charity stripe. The Hoosiers held the Cardinal to just 7 points over the final eight minutes of the opening half.
After scoring just 2 points in the second quarter, Moore-McNeil re-emerged in the third with 7 points on a perfect 3 for 3 from the field alongside a steal and an assist.
While Moore-McNeil cemented herself as a Hoosiers’ top offensive performer, LaMendola did so in a different way.
Over the Hoosiers’ first three games of the season, LaMendola played just 12.8 minutes per game. But on Sunday, she was on the floor for 17. Despite going 0 for 2 from the field and making just one free throw to finish with 1 point, LaMendola left a positive impression with her defensive play.
“My MVP tonight from the defensive side of the ball is Jules,” Moren said. “She came in and did a great job on (Stanford sophomore forward Nunu Agara), just giving her some resistance. She took a big charge down in the second half and so we knew it was going to take a bunch of pieces.”
Ciezki and Garzon closely followed Moore-McNeil with 19 and 18 points, respectively.
Ciezki, who transferred to Indiana from Penn State in late April, had previously struggled to begin the season strong. She entered Sunday having scored just 22 points over the three games and just 1 for 9 from beyond the arc.
But in her third game in a Hoosier uniform inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Sunday, Ciezki seemed to find her way as she drove to the basket with an increased level of intensity.
While it certainly could have been easy for the Hoosiers to put their heads down after opening the season 1-2 for the first time since 2008-09, they didn’t.
“There was never a doubt and there was never a panic with this group,” Moore-McNeil said. “It just took us a few games to gel with one another because this is a completely different team.”
Despite the ugly losses, Indiana didn’t lose sight of what made it into what it is today. In the four days since the Hoosiers’ loss to the Bulldogs, Moore-McNeil and Parrish helped lead the team to remember who and what they are.
“I think just talking with each other and reminding everybody what Indiana basketball is about,” Moore-McNeil said. “That we are blue-collar working and staying connected with one another.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
