'Most challenging' year of decade of IU women's basketball had coach Teri Moren ponder future
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women's basketball coach Teri Moren was ready to roll up the sleeves on her pink adidas sweatshirt and get to work.
The only thing that was missing was her team.
Moren spoke with The Herald-Times a few days before her new-look Hoosiers roster arrived in Bloomington. She talked at length about the unexpected departure of Yarden Garzon and the challenges her staff faced replacing nine scholarship players.
With the daunting task of building the roster in the rear-mirror, Moren said there's real excitement in the building about making all the pieces fit together.
'We brought them here to help us and be competitive, and be competitive in this league,' Moren said. 'There's something that energizes me about it. That's not to say I'm not going to miss the kids that were in the program, they gave me a lot of comfort, but we got a new group, lot of new faces and it's our job to get them ready.'
It's a welcome feeling for Moren after a 2024-25 season — her 11th with the Hoosiers and 22nd as a head coach — that left her contemplating her coaching future for reasons that had little to do with the up-and-down nature of her team's performance.
'There were some curveballs,' Moren said. 'Some that none of us were prepared for.'
Among them was Moren's 90-yard father Dick, a constant courtside presence at Assembly Hall throughout her tenure, facing a fresh round of health battles. She made frequent trips out to Seymour to spend time with him.
The team faced other hurdles along the way in private and shared emotional moments behind the scenes.
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'By far the most (challenging), outside of Year 1,' Moren said. 'Just challenging in so many ways off the floor.'
There were a few times when Moren thought retirement might be an option after the season, but they faded just as quickly. Her passion for women's hoops (and coaching) never wavered, and she went into the offseason focused on building another winner.
That's kept her busy since a loss to South Carolina in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Moren was even tethered to her phone when she traveled to Florida for a brief vacation during a dead period in May. She regularly checked in with her staff and worked on recruiting plans for the summer.
'It's a never-ending treadmill,' Moren said with a smile.
'First for all of us': How Teri Moren navigated IU women's basketball rebuild, revenue-sharing
Moren's calendar isn't clearing up anytime soon either. She'll spend much of June getting to know the new faces on her team, head to Czech Republic in July as the coach of the Under-19 Women's National team then come right back to Bloomington to continue prepping for the 2025-26 season.
When Moren committed to USA Basketball, she didn't expect her roster would experience quite so much turnover. She's leaned on her veteran leadership in recent years when her commitments to USA Basketball have taken her away from Cook Hall, but she doesn't have that luxury this summer.
It's why she underlined the importance of the next few weeks and making sure her team gets everything they can out of their time on the floor together.
'It's a fresh kind of canvas and it's a challenge, but it's one I'm looking forward to,' Moren said. 'The expectations don't change, the standards don't change. Trust me, they came here for those reasons. We lay it out pretty clearly, this is how we've built it, and our day-to-day approach is what matters.'
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