Indiana's women's basketball team celebrates after being named a No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament Sunday.
(Patrick Beane / WTIU)
The Indiana women’s basketball team won the Big Ten regular season basketball championship and enters the NCAA tournament this weekend as a No. 1 seed for the first time in program history.
This season has also been closer to the expected standard of the men’s team. The Hoosiers enter NCAA play Friday night as a No. 4 seed after barely making the field last year – and not playing in an NCAA tournament for five years before that.
Here is a look at what’s still ahead for both teams.
Fifth-year guard Grace Berger knows the women’s team has reached heights never before reached by the Hoosier program.
“We had a pretty good idea that we would be probably a one seed,” she said after the pairings were revealed Sunday. “But I think to actually see it, you know, on the big screen … that No. 1 next to our name.”
She said that was something she could not have imagined when she came to IU out of high school in Kentucky.
“Just to see where we came from when I first got here, in 2018, to where we are now,“ she said, “it kind of feels surreal.”
IU’s women’s team has consistently been good under coach Teri Moren, a Seymour native who took over the program in 2014. The Hoosiers have won 20 or more games eight straight years and made it to the NCAA’s Sweet 16 last year and Elite 8 two years ago. They won the WNIT championship in 2018.
This year’s first tournament game as a No. 1 seed will be in Bloomington at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. They will play the winner of Monmouth vs. Tennessee Tech, who play Thursday night.
Moren is eager to start down the tournament trail – but not taking anything for granted.
“There's only 68 teams that get selected year in and year out, and … to get that No. 1 seed, which has never happened in this program is both thrilling, but, you know, we're very humbled by it and just grateful for the opportunity that's ahead of us,” she said.
If the Hoosiers win Saturday, they will play again Monday in Simon-Skjodt Assembly Hall, which has drawn big crowds including the program’s first sell-out of more than 17,000. If they win the second game, they will head to Greenville, South Carolina, and back in the Sweet 16.
The Hoosiers had six players receive all-Big Ten honors this year. They were Berger, Mackenzie Holmes, Chloe Moore-McNeill, Sydney Parrish, Sara Scalia and Yarden Garzon. Moren was Big Ten Coach of the Year.
Last year Coach Mike Woodson’s men’s team had to sweat out Selection Sunday –one of the last teams to make the field and sent to a play-in game to even get make 64-team bracket. The proud Hoosier program had missed playing in the tournament the previous five years.
No sweating this year. IU is seeded No. 4 and will play its first game Friday night against Kent State.
Race Thompson is in his sixth season with the Hoosiers. He said after pairings were announced he has been waiting a long time for a season like this one.
“That's what it's all about,” he said. “In the past, my time here, we haven't really had this opportunity beside last year, so I mean, it is just like -- almost like a new thing for all of us.
“And for me and Trayce going out like this -- one-and-done, there's no doubt in my mind that every single game I'm leaving it out on the court.”
The Trayce he’s talking about is first-team all-American Trayce Jackson-Davis. He is third in all-time scoring for IU and is the leader in program history in rebounds and blocked shots.
Jackson-Davis greeted the tournament brackets with a one-game-at-a-time mentality.
“We have to be ready and locked in for the game, and then afterwards, we have to be extremely prepared for the next team,” he said. “So, I think that's huge for us; it's the preparation aspect for me.”
Coach Woodson said he is proud of his players for raising their level of play this year. He said every play is important in tournament play.
“It's a game of inches in tournament play,” he said. “… I mean, nobody wants to go home in March Madness, and I get it. That's why you've got to be ready to play every minute, every second of every game that you get an opportunity to play.”
Hoosier fans will be able to watch the men’s first tournament game Friday night at 9:55 p.m. Tipoff for the first women’s game is the next day, but less than 14 hours later.
While Moren is undoubtedly focused on her team’s chance to win a national championship, she was asked in the post-pairing’s news conference about the significance of both teams being successful in the same season for the first time in a while.
“This is what Indiana basketball is, right?” she said. She pointed to the rich basketball tradition of the university and understands expectations are high.
“I know the expectation … for Hoosier Nation, for our fans. … (B)oth programs right now are delivering on … what everybody expects us to do year in and year out.”
