Indiana University Athletics
Invested: How Teri Moren Is Changing IU
3/10/2016 1:17:00 PM | Women's Basketball
By: Sam Beishuizen, IUHoosiers.com | Twitter
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Teri Moren doesn't allow herself to be away from basketball for long. She can't help it.
The Big Ten's Coach of the Year refers to the game as her passion. Her sister says it's identity. Her players call it an obsession.
"You have to understand, this is all I know," Moren says. "This is what I do."
While walking through the weight room not long ago, sophomore guard Tyra Buss stopped to say hello after spotting Moren on an Elliptical Machine. Only it took Buss a second to get her coach's attention because she was preoccupied studying an iPad sitting in front of her.
She was studying film.
"I'm like, 'Coach! What are you doing?'" Buss said. "She's never taking days off."
Moren's weight room routine practically requires an iPad these days. She has the team's video coordinator Erin McKinney download five or six of the latest games she needs to study so she can go through them during her daily workout session. No time goes wasted.
This is who Moren has become. It's who she is. It's who she'll continue to be.
People frequently come up to Moren and ask how she's going to make Indiana women's basketball a winning program. She's more than happy to share her plans. There's no secrets.
"It's called work," she said. "It's good old-fashioned work."
Teri Moren doesn't know any other way.
***
The Moren family has always worked. It's what they do.
Moren's parents, Dick and Barb, both held 8-to-5 jobs. Teri's grandparents were her and her two siblings' babysitters.
"The picture that was always painted for us was this is what we do," Moren said. "We work."
Leann Hutchinson, Teri's sister, said the competition was especially tough around the Moren's Seymour, Indiana, home. Teri was the youngest of three kids and grew up in a neighborhood where most of the other kids her age were boys.
Not that it mattered much to Teri. She just wanted to win.
"We were a very competitive family," Leann said. "We would make a competition pretty much out of anything and everything. And nobody wanted to lose."
Dick was notorious for being at the baseball fields watching men's softball for eight hours a day whenever he could. On days where he was there, Barb would drop Teri off so she could sit alongside her father and watch the games for sometimes four, five hours at a time.
Basketball was always a favorite topic of discussion. Dick loved Larry Bird and his Boston Celtics, so Teri did the same.
In Bird, there was an example of a blue collar, hard-working Hoosier who turned a basketball dream into a career. He went to work, went home and didn't complain about it. He had the very same qualities the Moren family respected so much.
It was impossible to know it then, but Teri was going to do the same.
***
Moren doesn't want to call Indiana a rebuilding project. That's not quite it.
It's more of a culture overhaul.
"What we're trying to do is establish a tradition that the guys have," Moren said. "We don't have our own tradition yet. We need to build it."
Indiana's men have five national championships. The women have four NCAA Tournament appearances.
The men have 22 Big Ten titles. The women have one.
"My sister's a visionary," Leann said. "She's not going to settle for anything short of what she says she'll do."
Moren's plan? That's the easy part.
"You're going to work your fanny off," she said.
The execution?
"That's going take a lot of effort," she said.
Moren isn't even two full years into her tenure at Indiana after accepting the job in August 2014. This past season—one which she earned the Big Ten's Coach of the Year nod from both her coaching peers and the media—was her first chance to see a calendar year all the way through.
Moren won't use the word "surprised" to describe her feelings after winning program record with 20 regular season games, including an unprecedented 14-0 unbeaten record at Assembly Hall. She said that would take away from the work her players and coaches have put into this season, which they hope continues next week with an NCAA Tournament appearance.
Moren does admit this year's success was difficult to see coming after going 15-16 a year ago and starting the season with just 10 available scholarship players.
But then again, not many people saw the work players like Buss, sophomore Amanda Cahill, junior Alexis Gassion and a cast of others were doing behind the scenes with Moren looking on.
"I'll tell you this, I know this is what I wanted to happen," Moren said. "Did I think and believe eventually we would get to this point with our program and be in the discussion for the NCAA Tournament?
"Absolutely."
***
Moren stays brutally honest when assessing her own program.
She's blunt and to the point. She doesn't mince words or hand out pats on the back just because.
That doesn't do the work her team puts in justice.
"Maybe it's because I want honesty," she said. "I sense that it's sort of my duty as a coach not to sugarcoat things and be honest because I think there's so many people in their lives that already sugarcoat things."
When Moren sees a player doing something wrong, she corrects it.
When a player is out of line, she confronts her.
"I have a responsibility to our players to always tell them the truth, even when that's hard to hear," Moren said. "But I make sure they understand the people that can be most honest with them are true friends. They love that person, and I love these kids."
Moren's staff upholds an open door policy at Cook Hall. Whenever a player stops by the office, it's a rule that everyone stops what they're doing to give the player the attention she needs.
Whether that means talking basketball, school, family or anything in between, Moren will put whatever she's doing on hold to talk. It's one of the rare times work comes second.
"We just come in, hang out, talk about whatever," Gassion said. "It doesn't always have to be about basketball."
Moren said she's a different person in her office, which overlooks the practice court about 20 feet below.
If a player has a bad day at practice and doesn't want to talk about it, whatever happened doesn't necessarily have to come up, but Moren's going to be honest about it.
"And some of those conversations are uncomfortable," Moren said. "A lot of those conversations I don't like. But I feel like it's a responsibility as a coach to help them become better people when they leave Indiana. Those conversations help that. I always tell them they're not in my office nearly enough."
It all feeds back into the team's chemistry, which the Hoosiers have said time and time again is the key to their quick turnaround. The players say they all feel like they're on the same page with one another.
Once everyone's on the same page, they can get back to doing what Moren wants them to do.
They work.
***
Moren doesn't want an NCAA Tournament appearance to be a peaking point.
She wants it to be an expectation.
Sustained success is the cornerstone of Moren's vision for Indiana women's basketball. She accepted the job believing that the Hoosiers would be competing for Big Ten championships and NCAA Tournament appearances year in and year out.
"My sister truly believes in her heart that she's where she belongs," Leann said. "She's where she wants to be."
The only problem is that no matter how much success comes, it won't be enough. Moren struggles even now to decide whether or not to tell her players how proud she is of them because she doesn't want them to settle.
"Everybody's patting us on the back, but it's almost like a double-edged sword sometimes," she said. "Now you think you can take your foot off the pedal, but you can't. We haven't gotten there yet."
The truth is Indiana probably won't ever reach the point Moren wants it. Chasing perfection is an impossible task.
Every season, Indiana's process of becoming the program wants it to be will change. The bar will be raised and the expectations will be elevated. There won't be time to relax much because that's not what Moren does.
She never has.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Teri Moren doesn't allow herself to be away from basketball for long. She can't help it.
The Big Ten's Coach of the Year refers to the game as her passion. Her sister says it's identity. Her players call it an obsession.
"You have to understand, this is all I know," Moren says. "This is what I do."
While walking through the weight room not long ago, sophomore guard Tyra Buss stopped to say hello after spotting Moren on an Elliptical Machine. Only it took Buss a second to get her coach's attention because she was preoccupied studying an iPad sitting in front of her.
She was studying film.
"I'm like, 'Coach! What are you doing?'" Buss said. "She's never taking days off."
Moren's weight room routine practically requires an iPad these days. She has the team's video coordinator Erin McKinney download five or six of the latest games she needs to study so she can go through them during her daily workout session. No time goes wasted.
This is who Moren has become. It's who she is. It's who she'll continue to be.
People frequently come up to Moren and ask how she's going to make Indiana women's basketball a winning program. She's more than happy to share her plans. There's no secrets.
"It's called work," she said. "It's good old-fashioned work."
Teri Moren doesn't know any other way.
***
The Moren family has always worked. It's what they do.
Moren's parents, Dick and Barb, both held 8-to-5 jobs. Teri's grandparents were her and her two siblings' babysitters.
"The picture that was always painted for us was this is what we do," Moren said. "We work."
Leann Hutchinson, Teri's sister, said the competition was especially tough around the Moren's Seymour, Indiana, home. Teri was the youngest of three kids and grew up in a neighborhood where most of the other kids her age were boys.
Not that it mattered much to Teri. She just wanted to win.
"We were a very competitive family," Leann said. "We would make a competition pretty much out of anything and everything. And nobody wanted to lose."
Dick was notorious for being at the baseball fields watching men's softball for eight hours a day whenever he could. On days where he was there, Barb would drop Teri off so she could sit alongside her father and watch the games for sometimes four, five hours at a time.
Basketball was always a favorite topic of discussion. Dick loved Larry Bird and his Boston Celtics, so Teri did the same.
In Bird, there was an example of a blue collar, hard-working Hoosier who turned a basketball dream into a career. He went to work, went home and didn't complain about it. He had the very same qualities the Moren family respected so much.
It was impossible to know it then, but Teri was going to do the same.
***
Moren doesn't want to call Indiana a rebuilding project. That's not quite it.
It's more of a culture overhaul.
"What we're trying to do is establish a tradition that the guys have," Moren said. "We don't have our own tradition yet. We need to build it."
Indiana's men have five national championships. The women have four NCAA Tournament appearances.
The men have 22 Big Ten titles. The women have one.
"My sister's a visionary," Leann said. "She's not going to settle for anything short of what she says she'll do."
Moren's plan? That's the easy part.
"You're going to work your fanny off," she said.
The execution?
"That's going take a lot of effort," she said.
Moren isn't even two full years into her tenure at Indiana after accepting the job in August 2014. This past season—one which she earned the Big Ten's Coach of the Year nod from both her coaching peers and the media—was her first chance to see a calendar year all the way through.
Moren won't use the word "surprised" to describe her feelings after winning program record with 20 regular season games, including an unprecedented 14-0 unbeaten record at Assembly Hall. She said that would take away from the work her players and coaches have put into this season, which they hope continues next week with an NCAA Tournament appearance.
Moren does admit this year's success was difficult to see coming after going 15-16 a year ago and starting the season with just 10 available scholarship players.
But then again, not many people saw the work players like Buss, sophomore Amanda Cahill, junior Alexis Gassion and a cast of others were doing behind the scenes with Moren looking on.
"I'll tell you this, I know this is what I wanted to happen," Moren said. "Did I think and believe eventually we would get to this point with our program and be in the discussion for the NCAA Tournament?
"Absolutely."
***
Moren stays brutally honest when assessing her own program.
She's blunt and to the point. She doesn't mince words or hand out pats on the back just because.
That doesn't do the work her team puts in justice.
"Maybe it's because I want honesty," she said. "I sense that it's sort of my duty as a coach not to sugarcoat things and be honest because I think there's so many people in their lives that already sugarcoat things."
When Moren sees a player doing something wrong, she corrects it.
When a player is out of line, she confronts her.
"I have a responsibility to our players to always tell them the truth, even when that's hard to hear," Moren said. "But I make sure they understand the people that can be most honest with them are true friends. They love that person, and I love these kids."
Moren's staff upholds an open door policy at Cook Hall. Whenever a player stops by the office, it's a rule that everyone stops what they're doing to give the player the attention she needs.
Whether that means talking basketball, school, family or anything in between, Moren will put whatever she's doing on hold to talk. It's one of the rare times work comes second.
"We just come in, hang out, talk about whatever," Gassion said. "It doesn't always have to be about basketball."
Moren said she's a different person in her office, which overlooks the practice court about 20 feet below.
If a player has a bad day at practice and doesn't want to talk about it, whatever happened doesn't necessarily have to come up, but Moren's going to be honest about it.
"And some of those conversations are uncomfortable," Moren said. "A lot of those conversations I don't like. But I feel like it's a responsibility as a coach to help them become better people when they leave Indiana. Those conversations help that. I always tell them they're not in my office nearly enough."
It all feeds back into the team's chemistry, which the Hoosiers have said time and time again is the key to their quick turnaround. The players say they all feel like they're on the same page with one another.
Once everyone's on the same page, they can get back to doing what Moren wants them to do.
They work.
***
Moren doesn't want an NCAA Tournament appearance to be a peaking point.
She wants it to be an expectation.
Sustained success is the cornerstone of Moren's vision for Indiana women's basketball. She accepted the job believing that the Hoosiers would be competing for Big Ten championships and NCAA Tournament appearances year in and year out.
"My sister truly believes in her heart that she's where she belongs," Leann said. "She's where she wants to be."
The only problem is that no matter how much success comes, it won't be enough. Moren struggles even now to decide whether or not to tell her players how proud she is of them because she doesn't want them to settle.
"Everybody's patting us on the back, but it's almost like a double-edged sword sometimes," she said. "Now you think you can take your foot off the pedal, but you can't. We haven't gotten there yet."
The truth is Indiana probably won't ever reach the point Moren wants it. Chasing perfection is an impossible task.
Every season, Indiana's process of becoming the program wants it to be will change. The bar will be raised and the expectations will be elevated. There won't be time to relax much because that's not what Moren does.
She never has.
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