How Teri Moren built Indiana into a women's college basketball powerhouse

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Teri Moren was like so many Indiana kids. She went to church on Sundays, to grandma's house for lunch, then watched the Bobby Knight Show and Hoosier men's basketball games.

While Knight's teams won two NCAA titles in the 1980s, the Indiana women went to one NCAA tournament that decade, in 1983. They were barely an afterthought on their own campus, and Knight famously didn't want to share the same arena with them.

As one of the top high school players in the state in 1987, Moren didn't even consider attending Indiana.

«At the time, there just wasn't really a good vibe,» she said. «IU women's basketball had very, very little relevancy.»

Moren, who grew up in Seymour, Indiana, 45 minutes southeast of the Hoosiers' Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, instead played at Purdue.

«I don't know that I ever thought I'd be at Indiana,» Moren said. «But I always thought if they could find the right person to be here, it was sort of the best-kept secret. Because I know Indiana and Indiana fans. If you put a product on the floor that is good basketball, the fans will show up.»

On Sunday, 17,222 fans — the first sellout in Indiana women's basketball history — stuffed the basketball cathedral as the Hoosiers beat Purdue to clinch their first Big Ten regular-season title since 1983. It was 40 years in the making and the culmination of Moren's nine years as the Hoosiers' head coach.

The historic win came on senior day, and the crowd showered fifth-year senior Grace Berger — who had feared her college career might be over when she was injured in November — with love. Junior Sydney Parrish, back in her home state after two seasons at Oregon, basked in the celebration, and joined Berger by recording a double-double. And Moren