Women's Basketball Is At Crossroads In Post-Mackenzie Holmes Era And Fans Need To Be Patient

Hoosiers Fall To Butler 56-46

Hinkle Fieldhouse Where Indiana Took On Butler Wednesday Night.

Indianapolis-The early season struggles continued as IU’s offense stalled in a 56-46 defeat to Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse. While some transition was expected, the Hoosiers fell to 1-2 on the season after a decade of unprecedented success.

Regardless of tonight’s results, the question is where the future lies with this program. After several years of elite play under all-time program greats Grace Berger and Mackenzie Holmes, the current answer is somewhat unclear as to where things are headed.

IU coach Teri Moren reiterated that not having Holmes changes how the offense runs.

“Certainly you miss Mackenzie,” Moren said. “There is no other way to say it. We have to have great balance. We have to have an inside presence.”

Fans however can certainly look to other IU teams after an unprecedented era of success for potential clues. The best path for Hoosier partisans would be to look at Indiana baseball in post-Kyle Schwarber times. After 2013 and 2014 of being amongst the very best in the country, and the greatest seasons in program history, 2015 was a transition year. It was not a smooth ride.

However, ultimately enough pieces remained from the previous era to return to the postseason and they have done so nearly every year since that time. An obvious connection here is despite the loss of Schwarber, solid role players returned in Scott Donley, Scott Effross, Kyle Hart, Brad Hartong, and Nick Ramos who had experienced the success of 2014.

Similarly, this women’s squad still has Yarden Garzon, Chloe Moore-McNeil, and Sydney Parrish who are all major contributors to the constant winning of recent times. While the early season has been bumpy without the program GOATS, this may get much better as 2024-2025 gets deeper. Certainly Moren has proven she can get this program through trying times.

Indeed 2015 baseball had head-scratching losses to Presbyterian and Furman early but also got some top victories as the spring wore on. This women’s squad will also have enough opportunities to redeem itself against great teams as well. This will more than make up for the recent setback against lowly Harvard and tonight.

Indeed, as better prospects come aboard and recruiting has improved, this is very possible. While the 5-star prospects are still not there, top-100 players with high upside are now a regular after years of mostly unranked recruits. This level of talent can often lead to regular NCAA Tournament appearances.

However, this is not a guarantee. Following baseball’s 2015 example though this winter and in the future is by far the most likely scenario. A second possibility exists though that would be less fortuitous but still ultimately acceptable for most.

This involves Tom Crean in a post-Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller world. While some Indiana supporters may bristle at this, further thought might make this choice more than acceptable. Indeed, IU coach Teri Moren has sighted Crean as one of the people she looks towards most.

This would see the 2024-2025 season not going as planned and missing the postseason altogether similar to Crean’s 2013-2014. However, the following couple of seasons went much better with postseason appearances again and included another deep tournament run.

While the roller coaster then went back down, a back and forth between success and failure should 100% be accepted by fans. Indeed, with the transfer portal and rosters changing yearly, this could be prevalent for many squads now for better or worse. Also, the women’s side has hardly had any success at all until Moren came aboard. As a result, some inconsistent success must be accepted by the Hoosier fan base.

Understandably, many supporters did not follow baseball or women’s basketball before their runs of glory. This has led some of the newer fans of these squads to think they have always and should always be elite. However, the reality of this is far from true.

The final possibility would be unfortunate and what this program will very likely avoid. This path is that of IU volleyball in a post-Ashley Benson (daughter of IU basketball great Kent Benson) world. Similarly to Moren, the head coach at the time Sherry Dunbar, took over a downtrodden program and slowly built up to unprecedented levels in 2010 led by the younger Benson.

However, once Benson graduated, the program went right back to the bottom and Dunbar never had more success and was eventually relieved of her duty. Now-IU coach Steve Aird has built back up to moderate winning, but it unfortunately took a regime change. It should also be noted Dunbar was working with sub-par facilities which is not something the current women’s basketball program has to worry about,

Dunbar said the lack of results later in her tenure was a result of losing Benson among others and winning can be an up-and-down proposition.

“2011 was a struggle because we lost both of our middle blockers - one being a captain and the other a 1st team All American (Benson) due to graduation,” Dunbar said. “Athletics is a cycle and recruiting constant talent behind very accomplished players is what is needed to sustain that type of success. We certainly tried but didn’t meet those expectations.”

Given her Indiana roots and how much she has done for the women’s basketball program, it would be excruciating if Moren never has any more winning and a change needs to be made. However, this scenario is seemingly impossible given her success has reached close to a decade now. With that said, it cannot be 100% ruled out even though this is extremely unlikely.

Indeed, Northwestern women’s basketball coach Joe McKeown is still on the sidelines in Evanston and had a high level of success with future pros and WNBA draftees Veronica Burton and Lindsey Pulliam. While McKeown never came close to reaching Moren’s heights, he did experience postseason and being at the top of the Big Ten from 2019-2021. However, once Burton and Pulliam moved on, the Wildcats have been at the very bottom of the league and have already lost to mid-majors Illinois State and Lehigh this fall.

What is slightly scary, is along with Indiana’s loss to the Crimson, these other two defeats are the only ones in the conference to anyone outside the Power-Five. At the moment McKeown’s program has gone lifeless and it feels like his firing or resignation is inevitable at some point soon.

Moren must avoid McKeown’s path at all costs and she almost certainly will. While winning in a post-Holmes world at the same level has always been unlikely, following the way of Indiana baseball from 2015 on would be much more advantageous.

Moren said she certainly see brighter days moving forward and is content with what she has.

“I still love this group,” she said. “I think we have a ton of potential. We’ll get back to Bloomington and continued to do the work that is required and we will.”

More than anything though fans need to be patient no matter how good or bad results end up this winter. Within the next couple of seasons though we will know what path this program goes down. As it hits a fork in the road in the post-Mackenzie Holmes era of unprecedented success, fans should buckle up. Moren will be here a minimum of several more seasons and has more than earned the right to figure this out.