The big trophy says hello before any human can to visitors stepping through the door of the Indiana University women’s basketball offices in the hoops palace known as Cook Hall.

Resting in a proud place of prominence and accented by a twisting cursive swirl of basketball net it is almost as if the trophy message is reinforced in cake frosting. This was the 2022 prize granted the Hoosiers for winning their first outright Big Ten Conference regular-season championship in 40 years.

The achievement helped make Teri Moren an overnight sensation nearly a half-century after she began loving the game as an outdoor gym rat in her Fifth and Lee streets neighborhood in Seymour where she and the other kids shot baskets until the sun went down.

That’s where the work ethic was formed as she morphed into a 5-foot-7 star point guard for the Owls, then Purdue University. Cook Hall is where it is honed for Moren’s current-generation Hoosiers. Moren may wear a pixie haircut, but she is no pixie spreading twinkling fairy dust. Her curriculum is more hard-core — aggressiveness and attacking. The plan is to coach Steel Magnolias.

Players tough enough to perhaps emerge as NCAA women’s champions. Rare is a coach bold enough to make such a pre-season statement as Moren did at Hoosier Basketball Media Day in September when she said the Hoosiers can win the national title this 2023-24 season.

More often, coaches sandbag, hem and pshaw about what talent lurks in the cupboard. Shortly thereafter in private, she amplified.

“I’m a person who believes you’ve got to first of all write down your goals,” Moren said as she lounged in a chair overlooking the women’s court. “You always have to talk about your goals. Unrealistic? For us, it’s not. It’s realistic. It’s not out of arrogance. It’s not being boastful. I say it all from a humble place.”

It’s getting a little more challenging for Moren to remain humble. The Hoosiers entered a finals break, Dec. 9, with an 8-1 record and ranked 16th in the country. A 66-56 victory over Rutgers was Moren’s 100th Big Ten victory. Her lifetime record, coaching the University of Indianapolis, Indiana State and now in her 10th season at IU, is 407-224, a .645 winning percentage.

At IU, she has been rewarded with a $1.3 million annual contract, not long ago unthinkable as women’s sports have grown, expanded and matured under the NCAA umbrella in the 50 years since passage of federal Title IX legislation.

As Moren puts it, it is a great time to be a woman in sports.

Last year, when Indiana finished 28-4, Moren was chosen the AP National Coach of the Year. Moren previously coached with Team USA’s Under-19s at World Cup Trials. And last summer Moren was assistant coach for the USA Under-18 Americas gold-medal-winning team. This is how coaches get noticed to lead Olympic teams.

“We always root for Teri,” said Doug Reinbold, a former Navy pilot living in Virginia, who participated in those fierce Seymour neighborhood basketball games. “It doesn’t matter what color shirt she’s got on.” Reinbold has followed all of Moren’s hoop stops in newspapers, on radio and on television. He has noticed a change.

“I can tell Teri’s finally gotten famous,” Reinbold said. “They spell and pronounce her name correctly.”

Moren. It’s not Mor-een. It’s not Mo-ran.

Started young

The driveway games were so Indiana. The perfect image of Hoosiers building dreams one dribble, one jump shot at a time.

Moren lived with father Dick, mother Barbara who later died from amytrophic lateral sclerosis, sister Leann and brother Andrew Scott, who swam for Seymour.

There was no taking it easy on Moren because she was a girl. Heck, Matt Waskom, another lifelong Seymour friend who sells sportswear in North Carolina, said her elbows were as flagrant as anyone’s.

“From the time we were five or six on,” Waskom remembers. Some days it may have been only him, Reinbold and Moren playing, but other times up to 10 people were going at it.

“She was so much better than everyone,” Waskom said.

Moren wasn’t bigger, but other attributes sparkled.

“She’s got competitive spirit and along with that has this intense passion,” said Reinbold who roomed with Moren’s brother at Purdue. “She also worked harder than everyone else.”

Reinbold was a Navy pilot when the service opened slots to women for combat. He recalls much talk about women possibly not being tough enough. He thought back to Teri and the games. Hah.

The boys showed no quarter, but when Moren went indoors and flipped the dial on the television set, she could only find men on the screen playing. No women. Periodically, she has noted how it was.

“We’re excited we can turn on the TV and watch a woman’s basketball game,” Moren said. “I didn’t have that growing up.”

All of that playground style aided Moren at Seymour High, where as a senior playmaker in 1987 she led the Owls to a spot in semistate at Market Square Arena. Her name could regularly be found in newspaper sports sections.

“I’ve wanted to go to the Final Four ever since I was a sixth-grader,” Moren said then. She and teammates had the words “Be Part of Dream” on the back of their jerseys. Moren then scored 25 points in a playoff game.

“I just wanted to take control because I feel like I have to be the leader,” Moren said. “I just want the ball in my hands. And I want the other girls to look up to me.”

Even then, in an interview, Moren praised Waskom and Reinbold for helping her.

Donna Sullivan, the long-time Seymour coach, said the Owls counted on Moren for scoring points at key moments or to make the right pass. Moren worked so hard, Sullivan said, she once ordered her not to pick up a ball for a week to rest.

Moren averaged 18.8 points a game and led the team in assists and steals. Leading up to the semi-final against Noblesville she did not sleep and was distracted in class.

“All I can think about is going to the state finals,” Moren said. “I’ll pay attention for about five minutes, but then my mind goes back to basketball.”

No matter how much Moren willed it, she could not make it real. The Owls lost to Noblesville, 56-50.

Sullivan predicted Moren would be a five-star recruit for college.

“I want to stay close enough to home so my family can come see me play,” Moren said.

Her final choices were Purdue, Illinois State, Northern Illinois and Butler. No IU. The year before, Seymour forward Erica McCoy, another Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, enrolled at Butler. No IU.

McCoy said being an IU fan 35 years ago and wanting to play for the Hoosiers represented two different things.

McCoy said she received a generic recruiting email from IU that felt impersonal. “It was half-hearted,” McCoy said by phone from Colorado where she moved from Seymour. “You want to go where you’re wanted.”

Moren chose Purdue, only a couple of hours north in West Lafayette, though there was a coaching change. The new leader was Lin Dunn.

Dunn, currently the general manager of the Indiana Fever, is a legendary figure in women’s basketball with multiple coaching stops before Purdue. She coached the Fever to the 2012 WNBA crown and has held other WNBA roles.

No mystery why Moren did not choose IU.

“They hadn’t invested in women’s basketball,” Dunn said.

Moren the player was always a floor leader.

“Teri was the traditional, old-school point guard, organizing and getting the ball where it needed to go,” Dunn said. “I think of it as the captain – ‘I’m running the ship.’ She knows everybody’s position. She’s very demanding. I always feel like the point guard has some potential to get into coaching.”

Oddly for Dunn is that after coaching Purdue for 20 years in order for her to cheer for her old pupil she has to root for her old enemy, rival IU. She said it took time to adjust.

“It’s hard to embrace when it was your No. 1 opponent for years,” Dunn said.

Moren played for the Boilermakers from 1988 to 1992 and became an assistant coach at Butler the same year, staying until 1998. She was an assistant at Northwestern, 1998-2000. Moren got her first head coaching break with NCAA Division II Indianapolis. In seven years, her teams went 130-73 with a best mark of 29-3 and three tournament berths.

From 2007-2010, Moren was associate head coach at Georgia Tech. Then she became a D-I boss at Indiana State for four years. In 2014, certain she was ready, Moren was hired to run the Hoosiers’ women’s program.

Sullivan said Moren’s coaching rise could not immediately be foreseen when she finished at Purdue. It seems forgotten just how long it took 1972’s Title IX regulations to truly take root. It took time to undo things. Once, it was routine for women’s teams to ride buses to away games when men flew. They had inferior locker rooms. They had fewer assistant coaches. And for some time, it seemed there were more male coaches in the women’s game than women coaching.

“There weren’t a lot of opportunities for girls in coaching,” Sullivan said. “It was starting to happen.”

Dunn noted the generational timeline from 1972 to the present.

“Teri is a great example of someone who has benefited from Title IX,” Dunn said.

Building new tradition

The Indiana University men’s basketball team has won five NCAA titles. The program’s tradition is as deep as any in college ball. Moren gazed at the honoring banners hanging on the wall in Assembly Hall and whether or not she whispered it or just thought it: “Why not us?”

During the 2014-15 season, Moren’s first, her Hoosiers finished 15-16. Just about every moment since Moren has been a sweating laborer laying bricks to construct her own powerhouse team.

It took just the one season for the Hoosiers to make the NCAA tournament. In 2018, they won the women’s NIT and that banner can be seen above the practice court. The Hoosiers have won at least 21 games eight seasons in a row. Last year they were ranked as high as No. 2 in the national poll and for the first time were a No. 1 seed in the tournament.

During the 2022-23 season, for the first time ever, IU women sold out Assembly Hall, 17,222 fans strong. They drew other crowds of 10,000-plus, 13,000. Not quite Taylor Swift attention, but it was no exaggeration to say the ladies were trendy.

“The tradition has always been on the men’s side,” Moren said. “We wanted to build our own tradition. We have certainly changed the way people look at IU. There’s a buzz about IU women’s basketball.”

Coming out of high school in Louisville guard Grace Berger, a recent star who spent five years with the Hoosiers, was sold by Moren on IU’s future.

“Her determination to make this program be one of the best in the country year in and out was evident, and hearing her talk, I had no doubts that she would do just that,” said Berger in an email from Spain where she was playing pro basketball in the off-season from the Fever. “I had no doubts that she would do just that.”

Anyone who listens to Moren analyze her team after games might be overpowered by how often she speaks of hard work.

“The phrase, ‘Do The Work,’ epitomizes what Indiana women’s basketball is all about,” said Berger, who was a No. 1 draft pick of the Fever last year. “And coach Moren reminds everyone of that each and every day. To be the best, you have to work hard to build great habits in everything you do.’

Current star Mackenzie Holmes, a graduate student who is the second-leading scorer in IU history, has referred to Moren as “a badass.” The hard-to-please side of Moren in coaching can come out even after wins.

Moren is not highly visible public figure away from the court. Under new Name, Image and Likeness rules whereby they can get paid, college student athletes can push products. Moren, who watches more film than Roger Ebert ever did, should receive an endorsement from a modern projector manufacturer. Her film equipment probably wears out fast.

This season opened for the women with a home 96-43 thrashing of Eastern Illinois. It was Moren’s 400th career win, a milestone, but a milestone she barely acknowledged.

“I just found out yesterday,” Moren said with a shrug. “That’s stuff I don’t pay attention to.” Almost begrudgingly, she added, “This is just one of the things we can check off.”

Even a player, guard Lexus Bargesser, gently chided Moren for not lightening up a little.

“She didn’t even tell us,” Bargesser said. “She’s such a humble coach.”

Moren scrutinized the box score and found fault in a 53-point triumph. Aha, foul shooting. The Hoosiers shot just 2-for-11.

“So, we’re going to shoot 400 free throws tomorrow,” Moren said.

A week or so later, reporters asked players how many foul shots they did shoot.

“A lot,” Holmes said. 400? “Seventy-five or 100.” In a day.

When IU beat Lipscomb, 77-44, Moren frowned at something else she didn’t like in the box score. If Moren was a professor, students might duck her class in fear of having their grade-point averages damaged.

“I am a tough grader,” Moren said. Then she dispensed an overall grade of “B” for the 33-point win.

The players are used to Moren scrutinization. She regularly calls them out for mistakes when watching those films.

“Coach is always going to hold us accountable,” Holmes said.

Winning sells

That long run of 20-win seasons has manufactured a fan base that did not previously exist, requiring advance ticket sales and more restrictive parking.

In recent play, there have been only two bumps on the Hoosier highway, places where permafrost cracked the asphalt as they drove along.

Last season that No. 1 NCAA seed gave IU homecourt for the opening rounds of the tournament. In the second game, they were upset by Miami, a stunning event that left fans silent and players crying.

Before this season began, forward Sydney Parrish was candid.

“It still hurts,” she said.

Early this season, the Hoosiers were dismantled by Stanford, 96-64. The margin was the eye-opener. This fed Moren’s continuing comments about the team still having a lot of work to do. In the practice facility there is a motto on the walls: “You don’t get what you want, you get what you earn.”

When young recruits visit Cook Hall, Moren said they are blown away.

“They’re always in awe of this place,” she said.

Moren will practice what the motto preaches and can point to the far wall at the banners of an NCAA Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen and tell a player if she comes to Bloomington she can help add to the flags.

They know IU now

Once, sitting in a seat near the court at a Fever game, Donna Sullivan heard people in the row behind talking about IU and its splendid coach. Eventually, she turned around and told a guy she had coached the coach in high school, and he didn’t believe her. After checking somewhere, he returned.

“He said, ‘I want to shake your hand,’” Sullivan said.

Teri Moren celebrity by affiliation now.

Watching the Moren-led IU awakening, McCoy said, is infectious.

“It has gone to a whole new level now,” she said.

McCoy said she, her husband, cousins, aunts and uncles conducted a New Year’s living room TV party in Seymour to watch the IU women. They also all had home-game season tickets.

Berger said the steady 20-win seasons and high national rankings tell a story.

“The biggest change is the expectation to win,” Berger said. “It went from being one of the bottom teams in the Big Ten to being a team that is competing for championships year in and year out.”

Waskom and Reinbold send supportive notes when Moren’s teams do something special, the friends from so long ago still bonding.

When Moren was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame she thanked those guys in her acceptance speech. How many people have friends dating back to elementary school?

“I was very honored,” Waskom said. “We’ve always been super proud of her.”

Mapquest will tell you it is just a 65-mile drive from Bloomington to Seymour, but Moren doesn’t get back often. Sadly, she said, most times recently, it has been for funerals.

In the fall, however, she was chosen parade marshal for Oktoberfest. This was a low-maintenance responsibility. Moren didn’t even practice the standard pageant wave.

“I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen,” she said.

Not that she is competing, but one Seymour favorite son who retains a larger glow of fame is singer John Mellencamp. Moren is a fan and said she finally met him at a concert last spring. His lyrics speak to her, perhaps louder than to most.

Moren said Mellencamp’s music is a reminder to Hoosiers. “His hometown roots are similar to the way I was brought up,” she said.

Sullivan said she is proud of the way Moren has grown up and especially by recruiting young women of talent and character. Reinbold said of Moren players, “All of those ladies will do amazing things. She is making them extraordinary human beings.”

And young girls at Emerson Elementary School or Seymour Junior High, Reinbold said, might feel empowered by Moren’s success. “They might be sitting there going, ‘I’ll be the basketball coach. Or a rock star.’”

Would Reinbold trust his own two daughters to Moren’s guidance? Moren is their godmother. Fourth-grader Maci and first-grader Lucy have attended Moren’s summer basketball camp. Maybe someday “Aunt Boo” will become their coach and they will become Steel Magnolias.