Greece trip gives IU women's basketball a head-start in championship chase

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana women’s basketball will officially embark on its first overseas trip in six years Tuesday. The Hoosiers are traveling to Greece from Aug. 1-10 and plan to play two games — one in Athens and one in Patras — as well as take trips to Olympia, Nafpaktos and Delphi

The last time IU went on an overseas trip was in 2017. The NCAA allows teams to take an overseas trip once every four years, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented many programs from going at the four-year mark in 2021.

“Yes, the basketball is part of two games, but it's more of a cultural experience for us,” Moren said Sunday in a media availability ahead of an Indiana Fever game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. “It's about being together, you know, bonding and our chemistry, which in the last few years has been off the charts. We're just looking forward to getting away from Bloomington, the kids have worked extremely hard and had a great summer.”

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The best part about an overseas trip, Moren said, is the extended practice time. The Hoosiers got 10 days of practice ahead of the trip, as well as time together in Greece.

“It's really given us a great idea of, you know, a little snapshot of what our team looks like,” Moren said. “That's why I'm so excited about the pieces.”

IU has three newcomers this season: freshmen Lenee Beaumont and Julianna LaMendola, who were the Gatorade Girls Basketball Players of the Year in Illinois and Texas, respectively, and Sharnecce Currie-Jelks, a sophomore transfer from UT Martin.

The Hoosiers did lose Grace Berger, who was a five-year player with 118 starts in an Indiana uniform. Berger left IU as the program’s all-time winningest player, helping the Hoosiers to an outright Big Ten regular season championship and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament last season.

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“You can imagine it's gonna be a tall task. You don't think you ever can replace a player like Grace Berger, but we do still have a lot of really good pieces,” Moren said.

But IU has firepower — and extra practices — to make up for Berger’s loss. Outside of Berger, the Hoosiers are returning the rest of their starting lineup, including Mackenzie Holmes for a fifth year — which was granted by the NCAA to all 2020-21 student athletes because of COVID-19. Holmes was the program’s first first-team All-American in 2023 and a finalist for the Naismith Award, given to the best player in the country.

Seniors Sydney Parrish and Chloe Moore-McNeil, along with sophomore Yarden Garzon, will also return as starters in 2023-24, but Hoosiers fans won’t be seeing the expected starting lineup in the Greece exhibition games.

Garzon, who is from Israel, has not been with the team in their practices in Bloomington for the past two weeks, but she will meet the team in Greece on Tuesday. Sophomore backup Henna Sandvik has not been with the Hoosiers for practice and will not be on the trip, as she is competing with Finland's U20 team.

Holmes will travel with the team to Greece but likely not play out of "an abundance of caution," Moren said. Holmes was limited in IU's two-game NCAA tournament run in March because of knee soreness. She missed the first-round game and played, although limited, in the second — which was a stunning loss to Miami. Although Moren said Holmes is now completely healthy, they don’t want to risk anything with the All-American.

“I have to be really careful and protect her in terms of an injury,” Moren said. “I don’t want anything unusual to happen in two games that really don't matter.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Hoosiers women's basketball readies for 2023 with Greece trip