Indiana Women’s Basketball Begins Practice for 2020-21 Season
10/16/2020 4:00:00 PM | Women's Basketball
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana Women's Basketball officially hit the court for their first team practice to prepare for the upcoming 2020-21 season on Friday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
Head Coach Teri Moren begins her seventh season with the Hoosiers in 2020-21 and returns four of five starters from the 2019-20 season, 11 letterwiners, while adding three newcomers to the roster in the offseason. In addition, associate head coaches Rhet Wierzba and Glenn Box are back for their seventh and fifth seasons, respectively, while first year assistant coach Ashley Williams returns to Bloomington to join the Hoosiers' staff. Williams spent the 2017-19 seasons as a graduate assistant with the program and the 2019-20 season as an assistant at Furman.
It was a historic season in 2019-20 in which the program set a new record for wins with a 24-8 overall record and a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten with another program-record 13 wins. A projected NCAA Tournament selection last season, the season was cut short, like so many others across the country, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlighting the returners include WBCA All-American Honorable Mention and All-Big Ten First Team honorees senior guard Ali Patberg and junior guard Grace Berger. Patberg, who returns for her sixth year of eligibility and third at Indiana, was a Nancy Lieberman Award finalist last season that honored the nation's top point guard. The Columbus, Ind. native averaged 15.6 points, 5.3 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game as a redshirt junior, where she was listed a variety of national award lists including Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy and Ann Meyers Drysdale Award lists throughout the season.
Berger, a Louisville, Ky. native had a breakout sophomore campaign, where she increased her scoring nearly eight points from her freshman campaign, finishing as the team's second leading scorer with 13.1 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. Senior guard Jaelynn Penn, also hailing from Louisville, Ky., returns off an All-Big Ten honorable mention season where she chipped in 10.6 points per game and hit a team-high 39 3-pointers.
Big Ten All-Freshman team member sophomore forward Mackenzie Holmes returns in the frontcourt (10.8 ppg., 5.4 rpg.) along with junior forward Aleksa Gulbe (9.0 ppg., 5.5 rpg.). Senior Keyanna Warthen rounds out the three-member senior class along with Patberg and Penn. Sophomore guard Chanel Wilson started in two games last season and returns as an option to run point guard for the Hoosiers. Sophomore center Hannah Noveroske made tremendous improvements in the offseason while redshirt freshman Arielle Wisne will also be available to suit up after sitting out her true freshman season to develop her game. Also returning is sophomore guard Grace Waggoner made a strong presence, especially defensively, in the latter half of the season a year ago.
Notre Dame transfer Danielle Patterson is now eligible after sitting out her transfer year in 2019-20. The former McDonald's All-American is a native of Brooklyn, New York and will look to make an immediate impact. Newcomers include George Mason transfer Nicole Cardaño-Hillary along with freshmen Kiandra Browne (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and Chloe Moore-McNeil (Sharon, Tenn.).
The NCAA has set the first day of the women's basketball regular season as November 25, 2020. The schedule continues to be a work in progress, as we adjust to any rules and procedures put in place by the Big Ten and NCAA as we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. A schedule and other details will be put out as soon as the information becomes available.
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