ALBANY, N.Y — Indiana’s loss to South Carolina in the Sweet 16 also saw the departure of one of (if not the) best player in Hoosiers women’s basketball program history.
Mackenzie Holmes came to Bloomington in 2019 with barely 2,000 people watching from the Assembly Hall stands. Through her five years at IU, she experienced three Sweet 16s, the program’s first Big Ten title in 40 years, and an increasingly crowded arena.
This year, IU was one of two Big Ten programs to average over 10,000 fans at home. Those fans propelled the Hoosiers to a perfect home record (17-0), which included a win over then-No. 4 Iowa, and two NCAA tournament victories.
Mackenzie Holmes’ IU career ends:‘I loved being a Hoosier, and I loved every second.’
“I’m here for five years because I loved being a Hoosier, and I loved every second,” Holmes said on Friday night, wiping away tears. “I just pray that every student-athlete gets to feel the way I feel about a school because they deserve it. It’s an amazing feeling.”
Holmes isn’t leaving out of choice; she would likely be a Hoosier forever if she could. But IU’s all-time leading scorer left the program in a significantly better place than where it was when she started.
So, with the Mackenzie Holmes era over, how do the Hoosiers keep up the momentum?
IU also loses one of the best 3-point shooters it has seen in Sara Scalia, who spent two years with the Hoosiers after three at Minnesota. Scalia shot 39.6% from 3-point range in her two seasons at IU, including 43% in 2023-24, and broke the single-season record for 3-pointers in a season with 101.
It will be a tall task to replace a dominant inside presence and efficient 3-point shooter, but coach Teri Moren is up to the challenge. After all, she’s built a consistent winning program at Indiana, starting with the WNIT championship in 2018.
Holmes embodied the mentality Moren hoped all of her players would buy into, and she left behind that legacy for her teammates.
Indiana opened 2023-24 with a preseason No. 9 ranking, but it had a pretty immediate setback with a loss to No. 14 Stanford in November. But the Hoosiers fought back — they didn’t lose another game until January, when they traveled to Iowa City. In all, four of Indiana’s six losses came to top-15 teams: Stanford, Iowa, Ohio State and South Carolina.
IU eventually got revenge on the Hawkeyes with a win at Assembly Hall in February. Then, the Hoosiers nabbed a host seed and clawed their way to the Sweet 16 with a gritty win over Oklahoma.
“I’m always optimistic. That’s just how I am,” Moren said about the future of her program. “Always look forward to what’s next for our program. We’ve done a lot of really, really great things — this has been an unbelievable year, especially when we started out with the tough loss at Stanford, and I think everybody was wondering, ‘What’s up with this team?’ and, ‘Will they have an opportunity to get into the field?’ and ‘How far can they go?’ and then we rattle off 13 straight wins, and beat some teams, and have a great Iowa win at home, and so forth.”
Sydney Parrish, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Yarden Garzon will return for the Hoosiers in 2024-25. Each has been starting for the past two seasons, and their play will be easy to build around.
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Barring impact transfers, Lexus Bargesser, who started nine games for the Hoosiers when Parrish was injured this season, will likely slot into the backcourt alongside Moore-McNeil. Bargesser served as Moore-McNeil’s primary backup this season, but each can play off the ball. They are the two best defenders on the team, usually switching off guarding the best opposing player.
Lilly Meister, Holmes’ backup this season, will likely take over the final starting spot. Meister has sat behind the All-American center for two years and averaged 3.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in 10.5 minutes per game this year.
But it also wouldn’t be surprising if Faith Wiseman, a four-star forward in the Hoosiers’ 2024 class, puts up a fight for that starting spot. The 6-4 in-state recruit put up 18.2 points and grabbed 11.9 rebounds in her senior season with Indian Creek. Sydney Fenn, a 6-3 forward from Arizona, is also joining the program to bolster the IU frontcourt. She averaged 12 points and nine rebounds in her junior season.
The Hoosiers will also — barring any potential transfers out — have a bench of rising-sophomores Lenee Beaumont and Julianna LaMendola, and rising-junior Henna Sandvik. LaMendola got a lot of time backing up Parrish this season, while Beaumont was in and out of the rotation depending on injuries.
But all of the returning players will have seen Holmes and Scalia’s gritty mentality — and they’ll have the pain of losing in the Sweet 16 to go along with it.
“Those guys that are coming back, this is a great experience for them,” Moren said. “It needs to sting. It needs to hurt a little bit. I want our kids — as I said to them, to walk out with their heads held high. But I want it to bother Beau. I want it to bother Jules. I want it to bother Chloe, I want it to bother Lilly, all those kids, Lexie. I want it to bother them, and I know it does.”
Indiana was just one of two Big Ten teams to make it to the Sweet 16 this year. And that’s something the Hoosiers want to make a habit.
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