2025-26 Team Preview: Indiana

Not to make this the weekly Naz Hillmon segment, but I’m going to talk about Naz Hillmon again. It’s hard not to at this point.

Hillmon is the current betting favorite for Sixth Player of the Year, a placement that currently feels like it can only be stopped by Hillmon herself, who has started the last two games for the injured Brittney Griner. She is averaging 8.6 PPG, 5.3 RPG and 2.1 APG in 22.6 minutes per contest. Much has been made of her three-point shooting improvements, and that’s fair considering Hillmon made all of one single three in her WNBA career prior to this season.

She is up to 35 threes made on a respectable 33.7% efficiency, but her successes go far past that. She leads the WNBA with a 70.9 FG% from inside the arc to go along with her new perimeter threat, and she’s scoring at a higher volume than she has at any point in her pro career. How much so? Well, she’s scored 14 or more points in her last four games. Prior to that, Hillmon had scored 14+ points once ever across her previous three seasons.

In summary, Naz Hillmon is a monster and she is giving the Dream a massive, massive lift wherever they play her. Not bad for a former second-round pick I’d say!

Last Week’s Preview (Wisconsin)

Table of Contents

• 2024-25 Overview

• Departures

• Returnees

• Incoming Players

• Outlook

2024-25 Overview

It has been such a successful last decade for Indiana women’s basketball under head coach Teri Moren.

The Hoosiers have found a real consistency in their play since Moren took over in 2014, and they came into last season on the back of nine straight seasons with 20+ victories. That included a 2023-24 season where Indiana finished with the nation’s top field goal percentage (50.4%) and three-point percentage (39.6%). It was a lethal group that gave eventual national champions South Carolina everything they could muster in a narrow defeat.

Indiana managed to get the 20-win season streak up to 10 last season, even if just barely. The three-point shooting continued its excellence despite a slight step back, but elsewhere, the offense really took a hit.

Moren slowed the pace of the attack down slightly (71.5 Poss/40 in 23-24), but the Hoosiers’ offense — maybe the most well-rounded in the nation a year before — dropped by nearly 10 PPG from the 79.5 it had averaged. The team shot five percentage points worse from the field, its rebounding dropped from a strength (52.5%, fourth in B1G) to merely average, and the overall Her Hoop Stats team rating fell a substantial 11.9 points on the whole.

There’s plenty of reasons for these declines, the two major ones being Mackenzie Holmes and Sara Scalia’s exits, but Indiana also looked less like the Hoosiers we have come to expect. The assists remained a strength (15th-best assist rate in NCAA), but a real lack of a two-way threat inside comparable to Holmes led to some difficult defeats.

All that said, Indiana was back in the NCAA Tournament, won a game there for the sixth straight tourney, and then lost to the Gamecocks once again in another relatively close battle. It was a solid season, but one that showed signs of some post-Holmes cracks. Those cracks have appeared to widen in a big way in the months that have followed.

Here's last year’s Indiana roster, sorted by Her Hoop Stats win shares:

Departures

Nine exits, six through the transfer portal, with 8 of the top 9 players in win shares gone from last season. These are not great things for a team that already felt like it had lost a slight step from the prior year.

Even before the portal, Indiana was going to have some major voids to fill with the exits of Chloe Moore-McNeil, Karoline Striplin and Sydney Parrish. Moore-McNeil has been such a constant for the Hoosiers over her tenure, and she grew into an elite playmaker with the ability to defend some of the nation’s toughest guards. She was never a major scorer, but her versatility was huge for what this team wanted to do.

Parrish joined Indiana in the middle of her college career, but she fit the team’s identity immediately. She was a massive energy player and was an excellent rebounder and defender from the guard position. Finally, Striplin came to Bloomington last season and really found her role by the end of the season. She was a really solid post player who became a core starter for Indiana during Big Ten play and beyond.

So those were the losses Indiana could reasonably expect. Losing Yarden Garzon is a different type of loss entirely. She has been one of the best three-point shooters in the country across her three-year career, and has also been a steady facilitator and rebounder to go along with it. Garzon also had a clear knack for hitting shots in the big moments and really became the team’s No. 1 option last season. I’m expecting big things for her at Maryland, but she was also primed to erupt if she had stayed with Indiana this season.

Garzon is the biggest loss, but losing five rotational players to the portal along with those foundational exits makes this season feel like a full-on rebuild. Lilly Meister lost her starting role mid-season, but was still an efficient post option for Indiana to work around. There was also a lot to like about the growing game of Lexus Bargesser, especially with her passing.

Henna Sandvik and Julianna LaMendola were willing three-point shooters off the bench in limited run last season, and could find real success at their respective mid-major programs. All these names, along with the exit of Sharnecce Currie-Jelks, leaves the Hoosiers with very little returning production to work with, but Moren has built something out of nothing with this program before.

Returnees

Shay Ciezki has been on a team searching for answers before, and she could be the answer to a lot of what Indiana’s looking for this season.

While on Penn State, Ciezki showed tons of promise on an overall underwhelming team as a freshman, and after a year of playing heavy minutes for the Hoosiers, should be ready to take on a starring role. She has maintained tremendous efficiency as a shooter no matter her role or team, including one of the best free-throw percentages in the country last season.

When Ciezki has shown more aggressiveness, the Hoosiers thrived: Indiana was 11-0 in games she scored more than 15 points last season. I’m curious if Ciezki can up her passing numbers or her trips to the line, but she absolutely has what it takes to bring on a heavier workload.

Joining her from last year’s team are two incoming sophomore forwards who got minimal action in Valentyna Kadlecova and Faith Wiseman, as well as Lenée Beaumont and Sydney Fenn, who both missed the entire season with injuries. Beaumont had an efficient 2023-24 season, but in sparse minutes. Considering how many exits there were, though, I think Beaumont staying with the Hoosiers could be significant, and I anticipate her having a much larger role than we saw two seasons ago.

Of the remaining returning names, I’m hoping to see more from Wiseman. She was a great in-state signing who is a former four-star prospect that put up impressive numbers in high school. Both Striplin and Meister are gone, so Wiseman has a real opportunity to get into the rotation this season.

Incoming Players

These eight names are reason for Indiana fans to feel some optimism despite all of the losses this offseason. While I am not sure these names will lead to instant successes, I loved the strategy that Moren and co. went with in getting up-and-coming names from major conferences that could pay off for multiple seasons to come.

That feels like the strategy for players like Zania Socka-Nguemen, Chloe Spreen and Phoenix Stotjin. Socka-Nguemen and Spreen were both four-star prospects on strong teams last season who will now have a real opportunity to see the floor. Stotjin saw decent action for a struggling Arkansas team, but also comes in with a lot of international experience and should be an asset in a better system.

Moren also found a great guard option for this season specifically with Jerni Kaiak, who was a really strong scorer for a solid Duquesne team. Edessa Noyan was a consistent ACC starter for Virginia, and even averaged over a block and steal per game during conference play. With so much uncertainty in the front court, she should be a steady presence to work with the less established talents.

Finally, crucial experience at forward could also be true for Jade Ondineme, who played a role for the NJCAA national champions at Northwest Florida State. Winning a title at any level is a significant learning experience, and it may help Ondineme find an important role.

Since the Indiana roster feels to be so in flux this season, I’m expecting both of the Hoosiers’ highly touted signees to see action early and often. Both Nevaeh Caffey and Maya Makalusky are Top 50 prospects with an impressive list of accolades coming in. They also both possess size (Caffey at 5-10, Makalusky at 6-3) that will hopefully make them ready for the college game.

Outlook

Projected Starters

• Shay Ciezki - G

• Chloe Spreen - G

• Lenée Beaumont - G

• Maya Makalusky - F

• Zania Socka-Nguemen - F

Projected Big Ten Finish: 13th

Indiana has a roster that is nearly unrecognizable from the one we have been accustomed to. There have been so many recent Hoosiers that have felt like program changers, and just about all of them are gone in one form or another heading into 2025-26.

That doesn’t mean that Indiana is now doomed to fail, especially with Moren still at the helm. I think this current roster has a lot to be excited about when it comes to a potential ceiling, but I’m also not sure how quickly this roster can achieve that summit.

Ciezki is truly the only no-doubt starter on the roster and she should be the driving force of this offense. I also have Beaumont as the only other returnee in the starting five, and I think her first-year promise from 23-24 will at least give her an opportunity to earn this spot.

My gut leans Spreen for the other stating guard spot, as she was a big-name in-state prospect, but I could also see Kiaku or Stotjin earning it based on overall collegiate experience. The same is true for including Socka-Nguemen, who also played on the USA U19 team this offseason. Wiseman should compete for this spot and may have an edge as a returnee, but Socka-Nguemen feels like she should get it based on potential.

The final spot for me is going to a true freshman. Makalusky was a sharpshooter in high school and could really help the Hoosiers with their typical spaced out offensive attack. But regardless of who gets named as starters, Indiana should be a team that relies on depth this season. I’d like to see Moren let a lot of players see action, as while Indiana of course wants to get back to the NCAA Tournament, this season also feels extremely important for building something moving forward into 2026 and beyond.

Indiana has been a team projected toward the top of these previews ever since Hoopla began, so ranking the Hoosiers 13th may feel like everything is on fire. But considering how much Indiana lost over the past two years, I do really like the pivot that the team has made. There is a lot of unproven talent on this roster that could make the Hoosiers a tough team to deal with once the pieces come together. We will just have to see if those pieces can all come together this season, or if it becomes more of a multi-year project.

Photo Credit: Kaitlyn Grifonetti, Indiana Athletics

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