BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s basketball closed out a 57-51 win over Marshall in a sloppy performance on Tuesday night at Assembly Hall.
The Hoosiers (3-0) struggled to put the game away against a Marshall team that ran a 2-3 zone and full-court press for the majority of the game.
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“We got out of here with the win, it doesn’t feel like a whole lot went well for us tonight,” Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren said.
Indiana avoided an early loss at home like it suffered last year with a strong performance on the defensive end of the floor. The Hoosiers held Marshall to 28.6% shooting and just 4 of 22 from 3-point range.
“We knew we were going to sit in the zone for the majority of the game, there’s some growing pains we are going to have to live through and tonight is one of those nights,” Moren said.
Here’s what stood out from IU’s win:
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Indiana women’s basketball guard Lenee Beaumont drives to the basket against Marshall at Assembly Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025.
Indiana women’s basketball limps to the finish line against Marshall
Indiana’s inexperience was on full display as it tried to close out the game against Marshall.
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The Hoosiers led as many as 16 points down the stretch, but squandered much of that lead in the final five minutes thanks to a series of unforced errors. The five-second violation they committed in the final 30 seconds was particularly frustrating for Moren since the team had installed a play for that very scenario in practice leading up to the game.
Moren is hopeful that the more game reps her team gets in contested games will help solve some of the issues. She used Zania Socka-Nguemen giving up back-to-back 3-pointers to TreShondra Williams in the final minutes as an example.
Socka-Nguemen was playing off Williams on the first one — she was 0 for 6 from 3-point range at that point — and played her the exact same way the next time down the floor.
“That’s the moment, the last one just went in, maybe you need to get closer and tighter,” Moren said. “She’s not real experienced, she’s not been in that scenario where she knows better. We got to help her and teach her.”
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Indiana women’s basketball can’t get in the zone in win over Marshall
Did Indiana struggle more going against Marshall’s full-court press or 2-3 zone? Moren called it a push.
“We were careless from the beginning,” Moren said. “I thought we looked passive, I thought we looked tentative, I thought we looked unsure and I thought some of us looked like we lost some confidence as the game went on and that just can’t happen. You have to learn to play through your mistakes.”
It added up to one of the sloppiest performance of her tenure in Bloomington with IU turning the ball over 28 times, the most since a 94-64 win over North Texas back on Dec. 6, 2016. The Hoosiers finished the game with more turnovers than field goals (20).
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They had more turnovers on Tuesday night than they had in their first two games combined (18).
Moren estimated that of her team’s 69 possessions, the coaching staff wouldn’t find 10 of them on film where it looked like they had worked on their press attack in practice in the days leading up to the game even though it was very much a focal point of IU’s game prep.
“For some of our players still because of their inexperience and youth, I think they carry that with them sometimes,” Moren said. “They become their own worst enemy.”
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Indiana basketball’s leading scorer Shay Ciezki has quiet night against Marshall
Ciezki went quiet in more ways than one against Marshall.
The senior guard was named Big Ten Women’s Basketball Player of the Week after averaging 28.5 points in IU’s first two games, but she only had 13 points on Tuesday and didn’t attempt a three pointer for the only third time in 101 career games.
Ciezki’s lack of production wasn’t an issue for Moren since the guard impacted the game in other ways with “terrific” defense and 10 rebounds. What the Hoosiers can’t afford is for Ciezki not to be a vocal presence on the floor each and every night with her being far and away the most experienced player on the roster.
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“She does a good job of helping her teammates and lifting them up, but she has also got to be more demanding to get the best out of them also,” Moren said. “She will continue to be called upon to be that for us.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Takeaways from Indiana women’s basketball’s season-opening win over Marshall
