Two hundred and eighteen days. More than 3,500 hours. The wait is over.
After a long offseason full of roster turnover, Teri Moren’s new squad showed out in its first game as a brand-new team with a 100-32 exhibition victory against Missouri S&T on Monday night at Assembly Hall. The Hoosiers came into this one firing on all cylinders and — outside of a dry spell in the middle of the first half — shot from range at an efficient 42.9%.
Zania Socka-Nguemen got this one started scoring four points early in the first quarter. But it was her tenacity that was a big driver for success on the glass and down low. However, she found herself in foul trouble throughout the game, ending with four fouls. She hauled in nine boards to go along with two blocks in just 13 minutes.
Shay Ciezki led the way with 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting and 5-for-8 from deep. Her energy was contagious, especially in the start of the second half where she piled on multiple buckets from range. This contagiousness spread like wildfire as Indiana shot over half of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc.
“We are in here every single day getting those shots up,” Moren said. “…there’s a comfort and [if] they’re open we expect them to shoot it.”
Despite IU’s incredible efficiency on offense, Moren placed a huge focal point on defense. And even more specifically on one player, true freshman Nevaeh Caffey.
Caffey got the starting nod at the point position — and she earned every minute out there. She was a terrific facilitator offensively but Moren said her greatest value came on the other end of the floor.
“Neveah [Caffey] set the table for us defensively,” Moren said after the game. “…at shootaround today if there was one area or one side of the ball that I really wanted them to focus on was the defensive side of the ball…we asked [Caffey] to set the table for us and be really aggressive from the jump.”
And they did just that. Their aggressive style on the defensive side of the ball was near-perfect as the Hoosiers didn’t give up a single 3-pointer to Missouri S&T and allowed only 13 second-half points. Mixing that ferociousness with their speed and anticipation led to 27 forced turnovers and a lot of points in transition. Thirty-four to be exact.
Now, it wasn’t all positive. While it was mostly successful, their physical style led to a lot of players finding themselves in foul trouble. Socka-Nguemen and Edessa Noyan each picked up four fouls while four other players found themselves with three.
The Hoosiers will need to be more disciplined moving forward.
Throughout the night, this was a huge focal point. However, none was more noteworthy than the return of Lenee Beaumont. The redshirt sophomore guard missed nearly all of last year with a knee injury.
“Today I was super comfortable, but that definitely wasn’t the case early on,” Beaumont said of her recovery this offseason.
And she looked comfortable. She posted 11 points, the third most on the squad on efficient shooting. Beaumont was an effective playmaker as well, adding five assists. Her ability to create opportunities on offense and fill the gap on defense was more than just noticeable, it was felt. Her 45 +/- led the team.
At the end of the day, this was just an exhibition game. There are a lot of areas on both sides of the ball that worked well for Indiana and a few that need more work. IU has eight days to continue working on their craft before their first official test of the season hosting Lipscomb on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
