Last season, the writer who was in the position I hold now gave Indiana women’s basketball a blueprint to learn from then-No. 1 UCLA. The Hoosiers were outsized but held their own in a 73-62 defeat.
However, this season, that blueprint wasn’t looked at. It was put through the shredder. Indiana struggled almost all 40 minutes at the Pauley Pavilion on Sunday, falling to the second-ranked Bruins 92-48, and a 14-13 overall record.
The Hoosiers seemed to fill their hole in the front court, but sophomore forward Zania Socka-Nguemen has been injured most of the season. Socka-Nguemen was one of the crucial transfer portal players that Indiana brought in this season. She was also familiar with the Bruins, as Socka-Nguemen played 16 games in Los Angeles last season.
Even with junior forward Edessa Noyan, plus bench pieces in sophomore forward Faith Wiseman and junior forward Jade Ondineme, trying to be physical in the paint, Indiana was no match for UCLA senior center Lauren Betts.
Betts feasted last season at Simon Skojdt Assembly Hall, finishing the game with 25 points on 12 for 16 shooting and 12 rebounds. And Betts did the same Sunday, compiling 16 points and 14 rebounds. The only thing that went wrong for her was a 6-for-17 performance from the field.
However, the length of UCLA outmatched the Hoosiers on both sides of the court. The 6-foot-7 Betts may be the cornerstone of the paint for the Bruins, but UCLA is tall at every position on the court.
“This is a very, very big team,” Indiana head coach Teri Moren said postgame. “Lauren (Betts) is every bit of six, seven, and has great hands and touch ... this is a big basketball team. That’s what makes them so special, and they can score the ball in a lot of different ways.”
Out of the Bruins’ starting lineup, graduate guard Charlisse Leger-Walker is the smallest player at 5-foot-10. That’s three inches taller than Indiana senior guard Shay Ciezki, who stands at 5-foot-7. UCLA senior guard Kiki Rice is 5-foot-11, while graduate guard Gianna Kneepkens and senior guard Gabriela Jaquez are both 6-foot.
And the difference was evident Sunday. The 6-foot-3 Noyan tried to anchor the paint for Indiana but was outmatched. Noyan only played nine minutes — as a starter — on Sunday after picking up two fouls less than five minutes into the game. The University of Virginia transfer finished with one point and two rebounds.
The trouble didn’t stop there. Wiseman had three fouls in 14 minutes, and Ondineme finished with four fouls in 16 minutes. Neither player scored one point, and they finished with one rebound each.
Even Indiana’s backcourt appeared out of sync Sunday.
Those problems started with the injury to Ciezki in the first quarter. The Big Ten leading scorer — 23.2 points per game — missed Indiana’s 79-73 loss to USC on Thursday with an ankle injury suffered during the morning shootaround. Ciezki appeared to injure the same ankle Sunday after an awkward step sent her falling with 3:13 left in the first frame.
The Hoosiers persevered against USC, but UCLA was a different story. Freshman forward Maya Makalusky had a team-high 13 points, freshman guard Nevaeh Caffey recorded 10 points — all coming in the fourth quarter — and redshirt sophomore guard Lenée Beaumont was 4 for 14 from the field for 11 points.
The problems for Indiana start with how this roster was built this season. When Ciezki’s out of the lineup — which has only happened twice this season — the Hoosiers don’t have anyone to turn to who can pick up her scoring output consistently.
Makalusky has shown signs of progress this season. The Fishers, Indiana, native has led Indiana in scoring four times — including 29 points against USC. Beaumont also has four games with team-high scoring. But the other 19 games rest on Ciezki’s shoulders.
If you look at the other bench, UCLA finished with seven scorers in double figures. Betts, Rice, Jaquez, Kneepkens and even graduate forward Angela Dugalić off the bench have all led the Bruins in scoring this season.
From a roster-building standpoint, Indiana has a massive hole that they need to fill next season. Yes, we’ll most likely see a Moneyball-esque recreation in the aggregate of Ciezki’s scoring. But Indiana can look at how the Bruins created their roster for signs on how to compete at the next level in future seasons.
The 2021-22 season for UCLA was a “down” year, which saw the Bruins finish 18-13 and miss the NCAA Tournament. UCLA had a large amount of roster turnover that offseason, as the program lost six seniors.
However, the Bruins gained four freshmen in the 2022 recruiting class, two of whom are crucial pieces to this season’s team — Rice and Jaquez. Plus, guard Londynn Jones and forward Christeen Iwuala played at least two seasons for UCLA before transferring to USC and the University of Mississippi, respectively.
The Bruins then brought in Betts from Stanford University before the 2023-24 season and capped off their key pieces with Kneepkens before this season from the University of Utah. Now, UCLA is 25-1 and 15-0 in the Big Ten with its only loss coming to then-No. 4 University of Texas at Austin on Nov. 26.
And I can see parallels from UCLA to Indiana. The Hoosiers are having a “down” season compared to recent years, but they have a lot of good, young players in the program, not to mention Indiana’s 2026 high school recruiting class.
Beaumont, Caffey and Makalusky getting older will help bring experience, plus incoming freshmen in wing Addison Nyemchek, guard Gigi Battle and guard Ashlinn James have this program projected to become better in the future.
I can’t help but mention that UCLA lost all four of its freshmen from last season to the transfer portal. However, I don’t envision that happening to Indiana. The Bruins lost many of those freshmen due to a lack of playing time. But Indiana will most likely have an abundance of playing time for these newer players next season.
Yes, one of the biggest complaints about this season’s roster is its lack of experience in the Big Ten and even women’s collegiate basketball in general. But that’s where the portal is crucial to Indiana’s future success.
Moren can’t bring in these younger players who joined the program this season. Finding older, especially experienced Big Ten players, must be the priority for this upcoming offseason.
But Indiana still has three games left in the 2025-26 campaign. The Hoosiers can make something out of a season that felt “lost” three weeks ago. It starts with Oregon on Sunday, but Rutgers and Penn State are critical for Indiana’s chances of making the Big Ten tournament.
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.
