BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana women’s basketball coach Teri Moren spoke to the media after the Hoosiers lost 74-60 to No. 19 Maryland on Thursday.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Opening statement …

Teri Moren: All right, disappointed. On such a special night for our seniors, I hate it that we couldn’t pull off a victory. But you know, Maryland was much better than we were in every category, executing offensively, we did a poor job defensively. We didn’t execute on the other side offensively very well throughout. We got it within two, and then, I think, turned it over, and then they went down and capitalized, and then the score seemed to increase. So just really disappointed. You know how we can play so great at home just a week ago against Ohio State, and then come out on such a exciting night, a special night. and look as flat as we looked. So I don’t have really any great answers for that. Maryland’s a very good team. We knew that the that they were really good on the road, and we made sure that our players knew that. I liked how Yarden (Garzon) was aggressive tonight. She stayed in and played with four fouls which I thought was great. I thought Shay (Ciezki) stayed aggressive. She did some really good things and tried to play fast. But outside of that, the other the other pieces struggled.

On what the Hoosiers are missing at this point in the season …

Moren: It’s focus, that’s what’s missing. We’re not a very focused team. I think when we’re really focused, hyper-focused, like we were against Ohio State, I think we know what we’re capable of. Didn’t feel like against Michigan State we were focused on the game plan, what we had to take away in order to put ourselves in a position to win the game. Again tonight, our staff works so hard on scouting reports and tendencies of players. It’s a two-day prep, normally and with the turnaround. I can’t tell you how hard we work as a staff and making sure that our scouting reports are detailed, especially with the tendencies of the players and just not sets. We certainly cover that. But a lot of it comes down to one-on-one, right? A lot of it comes down to that one-on-one defense. Tendencies of the players that you’re guarding. And then most nights, a lot of that action, the first part of it, we guard. And then when things start to flatline, it just becomes, it’s a broken play. And now you really got to dig your heels into the ground, and you just got to play. You got to be able to guard. You got to be able to rotate. You got to be able to help each other. That takes an incredible amount of focus. If there’s one thing that you know, I attribute some of our mishaps – because, trust me, they see it every day, they hear it every day – why it’s not resonating, to me, it’s focus, it’s consistency. It’s probably those two things, focus in being consistent, night in and night out.

On Maryland’s physical defense and how Indiana handles teams like that going forward …

Moren: It’s no different than how Michigan State guarded us. They’re physical. This league is physical, right? We have to embrace that. That’s just part of it. It’s part of being at this level. It’s part of being in the Big Ten. There’s a lot of teams, Maryland, Michigan State, you know, the USCs, the UCLAs they’re all physical. We can’t run away from that. We can’t. We have to embrace it. We have to realize it’s just going to be part of how they’re going to guard and we got to do a much better job of whether it’s setting up our cuts, whether it’s cutting harder. Being from a passing perspective, delivering passes that are on time and on target because you got a small window when you’re dealing with the teams that are that physical. Anytime you can get off of them, the passer has to be ready to make the play that’s that’s going to get us a shot. At one point we were a really physical team. And I don’t know why that is. I don’t feel like we’re as physical as some other teams, but I know we need to be. We need to be as physical back. Like I told Chloe (Moore-McNeil), at one point Shyanne Sellers just pushed her off and popped back and got a shot. And I said, ‘Nobody should come in here and push you off, right?’ You’ve got to stand your ground and not let teams bully you like that. Do I wish we were more physical? Absolutely.

Is there any lack of focus in practice …

Moren: Look, I don’t think we’re the only team in America that probably practice is not one of our favorite things we do. I think they would rather play. But we’re not a team that can take multiple days off or an extra day off here and there. I don’t think we’re a team that can only go a short time, because we need the preparation. That can’t be an excuse for why lose to Michigan State. You know, we’re on the road. Well, too bad. You know, there’s 17 other schools in this conference that do the same thing. We’re no different. We’re not special. We got to be able to show up. This is what I’ll say, and I’ve said this to our kids before, there’s no difference between practice standards and game standards. You simply play how you practice, right? And so there’s no such thing. They’re not different for me and and so our kids have to understand that they got to be better at it. I think that they have, they’ve tried. I thought our practices, I thought our shootaround today was focused. There was a great energy. I don’t know if it was just because of the night, it was Senior Night, and I think we all wanted to put our best foot forward for those three seniors. But we didn’t get it done.

Is there surprise that the team hasn’t clicked in the way intended at the start of the season …

Moren: I think that that’s a great question for you to ask our student athletes. What is it? What is it that we’re missing here? Trust me when I tell I tell you, I wish I could come in here with better answers to a lot of your guys’ same questions of why we do the things we do sometimes. Whether it’s defensively, whether it’s offensively, whether it’s not rebounding, whether it’s not taking care of the ball. As the leader of this program, I know I should have the answers, but I have, and our staff have – trust me, we’ve shown them, we’ve talked to them as a group about the things that continue to be issues for us. And why we can kind of get over the hurdle of when we when we face adversity. At Michigan State, things weren’t going our way and so we all kind of got into our own feelings, which can never happen. When you face adversity, the last thing you need to be doing is thinking about yourself. You need to be thinking about your teammates. Because ultimately that will help you. I don’t know that we’re a team like that. I think we get into our feelings too quick.

Then we pulled within five, right? And then all of a sudden we had this fight in us. That’s too late. We got to fight from the jump. We got to fight from the start. And I thought, coming out the in the first half like this those two rebounds, they got wide open shots just didn’t go in. I mean, I did not feel good over there about what we were giving up, both offensively in transition, and what we were giving up from a rebound perspective. I question if we had the fight tonight. We knew it was going to be a fight to keep them off the glass, to they’re terrific in transition, to not give up anything easy. And, you know, we didn’t have a fight. It’s a great question. Why is it that the consistency piece … I don’t know. We’re not going to stop fighting, we’re here until the very end trying to figure out what it is, But it’s been disappointing. It’s been frustrating.

We’re always as coaches trying to figure out, ‘Okay, what other angle can we come that they’ll maybe they get the message.’ You coach them up. You love them up. You’re encouraging. You still coach them hard, but you realize that they need confidence. We’ve really we walked a fine line with the group all year of not wanting them to lose their confidence, but also still having to coach them hard. And it’s been a group that it’s been hard to figure out sort of the recipe to how to get to them where they’re they’re not making those same mistakes, how they’re coming together when things get tough. But like I said we’re not going to quit. We’re going to keep fighting trying to figure it out.

On the gameplan on Shyanne Sellers (who scored 21 of her 25 points in the fourth quarter) …

Moren: We did a great job in the first half. We had Yarden on her in the first half. Then she picked up her fouls and then we put Chloe on her, which we thought was a safe bet. And then she got going. She hit the two back-to-back threes, just off of a little flex action that they like to run. And she read it. Chloe jumped it. The second time she jumped it way too far. The first time was just a little bit of an on ball screen that they had an opportunity, I think she and Yarden to switch back, and they didn’t. Kids like her, she’s a pro. They get cooking like that. When they feel it, they see one go in and then another one go in, and then things start to to feel real easy for them. Yeah, she’s a great player.

On the urgency of the end of the season …

Moren: Trust me when we’ve used words like urgency. Making sure that we come with extra juice, you know, some other words that I don’t want to say in here. Just to try to get them going, trust me, they know that they have to have urgency and the window is closing quickly.

Do any of Indiana’s problems boil down to player leadership …

Moren: I’ve always said this that a player-led team is so much better than a coach-led team. Chloe has to look at herself, and Syd (Parrish), and Strip (Karoline Striplin), those seniors – especially Chloe, who’s been here the longest and Syd who we depend on because she’s so vocal, right? Ask themselves if they’re doing enough right inside of that locker room to help their team. Because if they’re not, then they need to. But trust me when I tell you they’ve heard that message also. I think back to the Ali Patberg’s and the Grace Berger’s, those are two of the best leaders. They were such great competitors that they held each other accountable, but they didn’t care about hurt feelings. They wanted to win. We’ve got a big one on Sunday – our last one at Purdue – and see how we can bounce back.

On a special night, which again, I’m so grateful for those seniors and what they’ve given our program. All of them mean something different to me. I’ve been able to coach Chloe her entire career. For Syd to come back and be a part of Indiana. And then Strip has been such a blessing as well. So I hated that we couldn’t win it for them.