Everyone’s familiar with the phrase “confidence is key.” It’s ingrained into people’s brains from a young age and many think it leads to success in life.
The same can be said about Indiana women’s basketball after a dominant 72-53 win over Butler University on Wednesday. The Hoosiers looked confident on Branch McCracken Court, shooting a season-high 51.9% from the field.
The trust from 12th-year head coach Teri Moren — who notched her 450th win in her coaching career Wednesday — has increased for every player on the roster over the course of the season.
Starting with the most confident player of them all. Redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont has found her shot after starting the season with two games with 10 points each and a 4-point performance over the University of Illinois Chicago on Nov. 7.
I wrote about her performance Sunday after she dropped 23 points against Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. The highlights from last game continued into Wednesday’s contest, as Beaumont finished with a team-high 21 points and made a career-high four 3-pointers.
“We need a confident Beau,” Moren said postgame Wednesday. “We need Beau to be able to score different ways for us. And ... the last two outings for us, she's been really good.”
“Really good” is an understatement for Beaumont. She started Wednesday’s contest with 19 points in the first half, including two highlight plays: a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired with 4:22 left in the second quarter and another one with six seconds remaining before halftime.
“I definitely feel more confident the more we play,” Beaumont said postgame. “... I know I wasn't very confident out there. I'll just say, give credit to the staff and my teammates, because they pour confidence into me every single day.”
In addition to Beaumont, senior guard Shay Ciezki has been getting more comfortable away from her scoring ability. Ciezki finished the game with 14 points, but two assists and eight rebounds stood out from her performance.
Last season, Ciezki averaged 2.1 rebounds per game. This season, she is averaging six rebounds per contest.
For a player who aspires to play at the next level, Moren said, Ciezki’s well-rounded game this season is needed. It helps Indiana become a threat from the outside but also draws defenders away from the paint, which is where sophomore forward Zania Socka-Nguemen has become accustomed to this season.
Socka-Nguemen only played 17 minutes Wednesday — a season low due to her four fouls — but back-to-back 19-point performances to open the season show her potential.
“I think she's really confident,” Moren said postgame after a 19-point, six-rebound performance for Socka-Nguemen against Lipscomb University on Nov. 4. “... This kid wants to win more than anything, and she's going to do whatever we asked her to do.”
With Socka-Nguemen getting into foul trouble, it was an uptick in minutes for junior forward Edessa Noyan. She finished the game with 8 points, which tied her season-high from the Florida State game.
Compared to last game, Noyan didn’t need three made free throws to get to her points total. She went 4 of 5 from the field Wednesday but missed her only attempt from behind the 3-point arc.
Noyan has played — and will continue to play — a crucial role in her minutes on the court behind Socka-Nguemen. Noyan has become more physical in the post, an aspect of her game that will help her get playing time on the court.
Speaking of someone gaining playing time, senior guard Jerni Kiaku had a season-high 11 minutes on Wednesday. The increase comes after Kiaku nailed a layup with 15 seconds on the clock that sealed the deal for the Hoosiers against the Seminoles.
“She had a big shot the other day down south,” Moren said. “... I think again, we have confidence. You learn a lot of these kids, and I do think, you know, we're trying to get them more minutes inside of games.”
On Wednesday, the 5-foot-7 Kiaku finished with three rebounds and one assist during her time off the bench. She's a steady presence on the court compared to her youthful teammates, as Kiaku has now played in 101 games — including stops at North Carolina Central University and Duquesne University — during her collegiate career.
The performance for Indiana on Wednesday comes at the right part of the schedule. The Hoosiers returned to Bloomington after taking down Florida State 76-72 on Sunday in Tallahassee, Florida. It was Indiana’s first win over a high-major opponent this season. The new-look Hoosiers needed confidence, an aspect that was lacking to start the season.
“I thought we looked passive, I thought we looked tentative, I thought we looked unsure,” Moren said postgame after Indiana’s 57-51 win over Marshall on Nov. 11. “I thought some of us just look like we lost some confidence as the game went on.”
Now, Indiana travels back down south to “The Sunshine State.” The Hoosiers play an underperforming Florida Gulf Coast University team on Nov. 25, before two games in the Coconut Hoops tournament Nov. 28-30.
I’ll harken back to the phrase that I began this column with, “confidence is key.” But, for Indiana women’s basketball, “confidence is THE key” this season.
Follow reporters Savannah Slone (@savrivers06 and srslone@iu.edu) and Max Schneider (maxschn@iu.edu) and columnist Sean McAvoy (@sean_mc07 and semcavoy@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana women’s basketball season.
