Just two days after Indiana women’s basketball’s season ended with a loss to the No. 1-seeded University of South Carolina, three Hoosiers entered the transfer portal.
Junior forward Lilly Meister and junior guard Lexus Bargesser put their respective names into the portal, according to On3 Sports’ Talia Goodman, while sophomore guard Julianna LaMendola announced her entry via an Instagram post Tuesday.
Meister and Bargesser both arrived in Bloomington as the two members of the Hoosiers’ 2022 recruiting class. The former was ranked the No. 87 player in the country, per Collegiate Girls Basketball Report, while the latter was No. 68, according to ESPN.
Meister played in 96 games as a Hoosier, averaging 4.3 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. In each of her first two seasons, the Rochester, Minnesota, native learned behind program-great Mackenzie Holmes. In the 2024-25 season, Meister started 17 games before Indiana head coach Teri Moren opted to slot senior forward Karoline Striplin into the starting lineup in Meister’s place.
Bargesser took to the court in 90 games at Indiana, making nine starts in the 2023-24 season in place of an injured Sydney Parrish. The Grass Lake, Michigan, native averaged 2.1 and 4.2 points per game over her first two seasons.
Ahead of the 2024-25 season, Bargesser, with assistant coach Ali Patberg’s guidance, reworked her shooting form. However, she scored just 3.4 points per game while her field goal percentage dropped by 14%.
LaMendola arrived in Bloomington as a part of Indiana’s 2023 recruiting class. She was ranked a four-star guard and No. 52 overall player in the country, according to ESPN.
Across 30 games during her freshman season, the Coppell, Texas, native averaged 1.8 points, 1.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists in 9.5 minutes per game.
LaMendola earned a slight uptick in playing time in her sophomore campaign, taking to the court for 10.8 minutes per contest as she made five starts in place of Parrish. LaMendola averaged 2.3 points, 2.1 rebounds and 0.7 assists.
Where LaMendola made her mark as a Hoosier was on the defensive end, consistently drawing charges.
“I would like to thank Coach Moren and her coaching staff for giving me the opportunity to play at Indiana University,” LaMendola wrote in the post. “To my teammates, thank you for all the memories we have created throughout the last two years.”
Both Meister and Bargesser have just one season of eligibility remaining while LaMendola has two.
After the Hoosiers season-ending loss to the University of South Carolina on Sunday, Moren said she had already evaluated the offseason process.
“We'll go back — trust me, we've already sort of been in the process of kind of figuring out what we feel like those holes are going to be and addressing those,” Moren said postgame. “And then like the rest of the country, everybody will be in the portal.”
Follow reporters Dalton James (@DaltonMJames) and Savannah Slone (@savrivers06) and columnist Ryan Canfield (@RyanCanfieldOnX) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball offseason.
