Indiana women's Mackenzie Holmes ready for March Madness after resting injured knee
BLOOMINGTON — The Indiana women's basketball team was at full strength for practice the day before Selection Sunday.
That was a welcome development for coach Teri Moren after watching her team "limp" through the Big Ten Tournament a week earlier in loss to Michigan in the quarterfinals. The Hoosiers earned a No. 4 seed in this year's NCAA tournament and will host No. 13 Fairfield.
"It was quite nice to see," Moren said, with a smile. "Now it's go time for us."
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The main concern for IU was the left knee injury Mackenzie Holmes suffered in the regular-season finale. She has a knee cap that likes to slide in and out of place — an injury that dates back to her time in high school — that also kept her from practicing in the lead up to last year's NCAA tournament.
Indiana guard Sydney Parrish (ankle) and Lilly Meister (ankle) were also dealing with injuries.
"It's been a good week for all of us, especially Mackenzie and certainly Syd," Moren said. "We had some other kids that had been a little bit dinged up. This has been a good week to rest for us a lot."
Holmes, who was the team's leading scorer (20.0 points per game) and rebounder (6.9 per game), only played four minutes against Michigan in the Big Ten quarterfinals. She didn't enter the 69-56 loss until there was just 6:35 to go in the game.
"I think this past week I've been able to get some much needed rest for my knee and I've been able to get back out on the floor," Holmes said. "I've been practicing, each day I'm feeling more and more confident on it, feeling better on it."
According to Holmes, she's already surpassed where she was last year during IU's NCAA tournament prep.
"I think I practiced maybe once or twice leading up to the Miami game even after the Big Ten tournament," Holmes said. "I'm now in practices doing pretty much everything. I'm feeling a lot better this March than I was last March, which is a great thing for me."
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It's part of the reason why Moren is eager to get back on the practice floor this week. While Moren continues to monitor IU's practice minutes — "we were tapering off even towards the end of the season" — she wants to maintain a certain level of intensity given the tough assignment ahead.
The Hoosiers play a Fairfield team in the opening round that ran the table in the MAAC conference and has an upset win over a Big Ten opponent (Rutgers) under its belt. They will play the winner of No. 5 Oklahoma and No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast with a potential matchup against the No. 1 seed in the tournament South Carolina looming on the horizon.
"We have go to stay competitive, we have to stay on the edge of our seat," Moren said.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana women's Mackenzie Holmes (knee) rested up for March Madness
