It does feel early to pronounce the 2025-26 Indiana women’s basketball season dead. But the Hoosiers have shown no signs of life in Big Ten play.
After an 80-69 loss to rival Purdue on Sunday, Indiana has now lost eight consecutive games and is winless in conference. It’s two marks that have basically ended the Hoosiers’ season with nine games remaining on the schedule.
And right now, Indiana is not projected to have any more games than those nine. With only 15 out of the 18 teams in the Big Ten making the conference tournament, the Hoosiers are likely to miss their chance at playing postseason basketball.
So, with nine games still left to play, what lessons can Indiana take forward to the rest of the season and next?
Shay Ciezki’s scoring production
In the senior’s final season in college basketball, Ciezki is averaging a Big Ten-leading 23.6 points per game and is part of the infamous 50-40-90 club. The 5-foot-7 guard has sliced up Big Ten defenses this season and has kept Indiana in games where the Hoosiers would’ve been blown out if Ciezki wasn’t scoring.
She finished Sunday’s game with 37 points, going 11 for 18 on her field goal attempts, knocking down five 3-pointers and making 10 out of her 11 free throws. Ciezki was closing in on the Mackey Arena scoring record, which is held by Maryland guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough's 41-point performance in 2016, but Ciezki found herself in foul trouble.
She picked up her fourth foul with 5:44 remaining in the third quarter, sending her to the bench, but Ciezki returned to the game in just 1:36. After her bench stint, she went on to score 14 more points throughout the rest of the game.
But zooming out to the whole season, Ciezki has been the most consistent player on this team. Indiana head coach Teri Moren knows the high-level Ciezki can play at and has kept her in every Big Ten game for at least 34 minutes.
Even with her playing time, Ciezki hasn’t received much help from her teammates. An All-Big Ten caliber season that Ciezki is having is being put to waste with Indiana’s inability to win games. But now might be the time for Ciezki to start thinking ahead, beyond this season, and to her chances of making the WNBA.
Growth from the freshman duo
Coming into this season, it was hard to imagine guard Nevaeh Caffey and forward Maya Makalusky having a large role in Indiana’s season. Since the 2018-19 season, Moren only started one freshman in a season opener.
But the duo has excelled — most of the time — at being an instrumental part of this team. Yes, freshmen are bound to make mistakes, getting into foul trouble, having defensive lapses and making bad reads on the offensive end, but Caffey and Makalusky have grown together this season.
Caffey’s high motor and aggressive nature on both ends of the floor have kept her in the starting lineup since the first game of the season. Makalusky was thrust into the starting lineup and then produced multiple 20-plus point performances.
The pair were supposed to be good players — Makalusky was ranked as the 35th-best recruit in the country, and Caffey was ranked No. 42 — but not this early in their collegiate careers. Caffey is a defensive specialist, but has still produced 7.3 points per game, while Makalusky is averaging seven points and shooting 36.5% from 3-point range.
It’s easy to see why Moren and her staff are one of the best recruiters in the country, but they can also back up their claims by developing talent.
But Sunday’s game showed where the pair must improve. Caffey had seven points, all of which came from the free throw line, and three turnovers. Meanwhile, Makalusky only produced two shots and finished with three points and three rebounds.
Roster construction woes
Indiana lost four out of five starters from last season, so Moren and her staff knew that this season was going to be a difficult turnaround. But the pieces who filled the gaps have shown their inexperience.
The freshmen have been playing quality minutes as starters — Caffey is averaging 30.6 minutes per game, and Makalusky’s at 23 — but they have been making freshman mistakes.
And those mistakes have expanded to older players, such as the sophomore group of forward Zania Socka-Nguemen, guard Phoenix Stotijn and redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont. Socka-Nguemen has been in-and-out of the lineup — she missed Sunday’s game with a lower-body injury — but has the potential to be a dominant post player against Big Ten competition in the future.
“We’re young, we’re very inexperienced,” Moren said postgame Sunday. “But then we just haven’t been able to have a consistent five out on the floor to build any sort of continuity, momentum.”
Still, the Hoosiers potentially won’t be getting any older next season. Indiana brings in a four-player freshman recruiting class that ranked No. 6 in the country in December, according to ESPN.
It’s hard to call this season a rebuilding year after preseason projections had the Hoosiers in the NCAA tournament, but Indiana has reinforcements on the way for next season.
And this program must learn and grow from the lack of production that the transfer portal class brought in this season. In this new era of college athletics, swinging and missing on talent in the portal can lead to a long and losing season.
But Indiana can’t give up just yet. The Hoosiers take on No. 7 Michigan Thursday and the Wolverines dangerous sophomore guard duo of Olivia Olson and Syla Swords. A win against Michigan and there’s a new outlook on the season for Indiana.
However, a defeat will give the Hoosiers double-digit losses in the Big Ten. With Northwestern on Feb. 1, Rutgers on Feb. 25 and Penn State on Feb. 28 being Indiana’s best chances to pick up a win, the Hoosiers don’t have much room for error the rest of this season.
“There’s no quit in us, and in my staff,” Moren said postgame. “We’re going to continue to do what we do and prepare and coach hard and teach. I’m not looking at what is the record and where we are.”
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.
