BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2026

Teri Moren

Maya Makalusky

Shay Ciezki

Gainbridge Fieldhouse

Indiana Hoosiers

Postgame Press Conference

Ohio State 83, Indiana 59

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Coach Teri Moren and student-athletes Shay Ciezki and Maya Makalusky. At this time, Coach, if you'll go ahead and make an opening statement.

TERI MOREN: Congratulations to a very, very talented Ohio State team. We will certainly be cheering for them. Have a ton of respect for Kevin and his staff and players. They're obviously excellent and very talented.

We are certainly disappointed. I just think that one of the things that Ohio State can do is they can get you to -- they speed you up. I thought in the first half -- and the second half. I will say this, we got some really good shots. I thought we looked hurried a little bit in the first half. I thought we looked less hurried in the second half. Just still couldn't connect the way we needed to.

You have to put points on the board in order to beat a team like Ohio State, and then we just didn't have enough to keep them off the offensive glass, which again, we knew going into it there were certain areas that we just couldn't allow a lot of extra points, and it was off the rebound, the free-throw line, and off our turnovers.

We are disappointed we weren't able to play as clean and as well as we wanted to today, but again, as I said to our players, still really proud of the fight that they showed all the way to the very end, and particularly here in the last month. This is a team that's gone 7-3. So they've stuck together, and we're leaving here -- I am at least -- very proud of our group and how they've managed to stick together and stay connected here.

Q. For the players, what can you take -- Teri mentioned the last 10 games. What can you take and build off of it to the future?

MAYA MAKALUSKY: I think obviously having a team that's very young and out of the portal, I think it shows the grittiness that Coach Moren has installed in Indiana women's basketball. I'm proud of the team. I'm proud of the way that obviously we continue to fight till the end.

I think just the overall grit. Nevaeh and I getting those reps, Coach putting that trust in us. So having that confidence over this year will definitely help.

Q. Shay, obviously there's still some uncertainty about maybe postseason play and a WNIT game, but if this is your last game in an Indiana uniform, what's the message to your teammates and the future Hoosiers coming in next year to carry this program further?

SHAY CIEZKI: Man, I'd probably say a lot, but I guess the first thing to come to my mind is keep working. That's what I pride myself on. That's the foundation of my game is just to work hard, to outwork your opponent, and I think that I tried my best to show this group that you can kind of do anything you set your mind to.

The adversity hit us, and all we did was just put our head down and work even harder than the start of the season. Obviously you've seen that through our wins. Just to tell the girls to work hard. Not everything's going to be handed to you, not everything's going to be easy. In four years, you're going to face a lot of adversity, more than you'd think, and it's how you respond to that is what really matters.

Q. I was going to ask something similar. A modification of that would be for Shay, where do you see yourself being next season?

SHAY CIEZKI: I see myself playing pro. I'm a firm believer in the work that I put in to get here. I think I had a phenomenal senior season. There's not much more I could have done to try to set myself up for the next level.

I have high confidence in myself and the future. I think wherever God takes me, that's my plan, that's my purpose. Yeah, I'm just going to kind of wait to see what the future holds and obviously see the draft and see where I fall. I think my work ethic is going to take me wherever I need to be.

Q. Shay, I noticed your shirt when you walked in. How important is your faith to you, one? Two, how are you able to stay grounded in that over the course of the ups and downs of a strenuous season?

SHAY CIEZKI: My faith is very important to me. That's the reason why I'm here. I highly doubt without the faith of Jesus Christ that at 5'7" from a suburban town in Buffalo, New York, that I'm sitting here right now talking to you guys. That is Jesus working.

I think that it's a strong foundation to have your faith in God when you're going through adversity. Every person, whether a basketball player or just a normal person living, you're going to face trials, and I think having foundation in something so strong that you believe in is important, and that's how you're going to get through it and be better from it. My foundation is the Lord.

Q. Maya, over the last few weeks, how have you kind of felt yourself adjusting to the game at this level?

MAYA MAKALUSKY: Obviously with Shay being the great player she is and Lenée, we need people that can kind of help relieve the pressure off of them, but it doesn't happen without my teammates finding me and installing that confidence in me.

My teammates throughout the year have been helping me continue to get more and more confident to shoot those shots, which has definitely helped me get more confident along the way leading to that.

Q. Teri, yesterday you came from way back, played six players. How much do you think the lack of depth really affected how you did things today?

TERI MOREN: Yeah, it did, there's no doubt about it, and we're going to have to -- moving forward we're super excited about the freshman class that we have coming in here to Bloomington next year. I think they will provide some depth.

We're going to have to do some work here in the spring, I think in the portal as well. There's no doubt that you can't play in a league like the Big and you can't play in a tournament like this or the NCAA Tournament without it.

I did, I felt like it showed up. It reared its ugly head, especially with kids like Nevaeh tonight. We rely so much on her.

Even Beau, and Shay's put a lot of mileage on her legs as well. It did affect us tonight, there's no question.

Q. How were Ohio State, how were they able to stop you from coming back to compete in the second half compared to against Nebraska?

TERI MOREN: Their press in itself really, really is disruptive. It slows you down. It takes you out of any kind of offensive flow, offensive rhythm. Unless you can get a hit ahead to a layup, they do such a great job of recovering and getting back. Then they force you to have to play in the half-court as well.

They switch everything. Like I said, they're disruptive. They got to balls way faster than we did, even those loose balls. They're terrific. When you think about Ohio State, you think about, first and foremost, their pressure. It's outstanding.

Q. What went into the decision to keep Beau in with the third foul there with, I think, 4:20 left?

TERI MOREN: Again, we trust Beau to stay in there, and it didn't quite work out for us. We just felt like we had to have our best players on the floor in order for it not to get too out of touch for us. Having Beau in there, she's another scoring threat for us, although, again, she struggled tonight on both sides of the ball.

She is somebody that we really count on. So we just felt like we could trust her, and we needed her in the game.

Q. Would you welcome a call, an invitation from the WNIT?

TERI MOREN: We haven't even thought about that. We really, honest to goodness, have just put our head down, and we've just focused on especially finishing out the season the way we wanted to finish it out because we wanted to get into the tournament, this tournament, the Big Ten Tournament. Then our focus has just been on the Big Ten Tournament.

Those are discussions that we'll have when we get back to Bloomington here in the next week or so, but it will certainly -- I will weigh in with Shay for sure and Jerni to see what their interest level is going to be in that.

We're a little bit beat up. So I don't know what they'll decide. For some of those kids, we got some end-of-the-season things that we've got to get them healthy.

Q. It's been a whirlwind of a season, the highs and the lows, especially the highs, going 6-2 ending the season. What have you personally learned from your players? What would you say about this iteration of this Indiana Hoosier team?

TERI MOREN: Again, we -- as I said to them in the locker room, just the resilience that they've shown has been, especially in the last month, has really been remarkable.

This is a group that when you start the season, the Big Ten season, off the way we did, it would have been easy to just kind of throw the towel in, and we didn't do that.

I've said it multiple times in the media that this group has continued to show up every day, to Cook Hall, to Assembly Hall, and they're willing to work. They're willing to fix things that need to be fixed. They're willing to be great students when we're in film.

I do feel like -- again, it might not have been the season that all of us have been accustomed to around here, but there have been some wins in terms of our improvement. I do think we've had great improvement. I think for Maya and Nevaeh, they've gotten great reps for the future here.

So I'm not satisfied at all this season, and I think our players would echo that as well, but I am proud. I'm proud of what we fought, we continued to fight, and that's what I'm most proud of.

We're looking forward too. I think we've got a really, really bright future. I'm excited about our incoming kids. I'm excited about the kids I've got that gained great experience here at Indiana.

Again, we're going to get this thing back on track, and I'm really looking forward to that.

Q. Beginning of the year, you had pretty much nobody who had played for you outside of Shay Ciezki for the most part. Going into next year, you now have two big freshmen who started good portions of the year, Lenée Beaumont, who in the locker room was --

TERI MOREN: We can call her a freshman.

Q. Essentially her freshman year. Going in you have three leaders who have played a full season under you. How does that affect your confidence for next year?

TERI MOREN: As I mentioned, I think the future is very, very bright. With the addition of our incoming class that we have, and certainly we'll look at the portal to get the right pieces that are going to fit what we do and how we do things here at Indiana, but I'm really excited and looking forward to what's next for Indiana women's basketball.