Although it is an exhibition game against a Division II opponent, Indiana women\u2019s basketball has a problem that must be addressed: the fouls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is a big problem for Indiana, especially if Socka-Nguemen finds herself in foul trouble during the Hoosiers\u2019 biggest games of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to keep \u2018Z\u2019 (Socka-Nguemen) out of foul trouble,\u201d Indiana head coach Teri Moren said postgame. \u201cWe know how important she is on the floor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-3 transfer from UCLA was able to beat the Missouri S&T bigs in 6-foot-2 freshman Ava McCulla and redshirt-sophomore Megan Aulbert early in the game. Socka-Nguemen hit a baseline jumper before a spin and a contested layup to produce the first four points of the game for Indiana.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe gets up and down the floor really fast,\u201d Moren said. \u201cShe\u2019s going to beat most fives down the floor. There\u2019s no question. And so, we got to reward her for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her first foul came with 4:44 remaining in the first quarter after her shot contest hit sophomore forward Anna Gilbertson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Socka-Nguemen rebounded in the second quarter, mentally and physically. She picked up two boards with seven minutes remaining in the frame after producing two blocks. However, that momentum changed only a minute later, as Socka-Nguemen had two reckless fouls that forced Moren to keep her out of the game until after halftime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her absence, Noyan and sophomore Faith Wiseman picked up the slack. However, the Hoosiers lacked the offensive aggressiveness from inside the paint that they showed in the first quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After starting the third quarter, Socka-Nguemen finished her game with 5:29 remaining in the frame following her fourth foul of the contest. In 13 minutes of action, she went 4-4 from the field and hauled in nine rebounds. However, only being on the court for that short amount of time is not something Moren will want to see when the games count.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Z\u2019 has to stay on the floor for us,\u201d Moren said. \u201cShe thought she had six fouls. It was so funny. She said \u2018Do I get six fouls?\u2019 Maybe they told her that at UCLA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Socka-Nguemen was only on the court for 5.3 minutes per game last season in Los Angeles. Now, she has the ability to start for the Hoosiers, but her impact will only be seen if she is actually in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noyan also finished the game with four fouls in her 17 minutes on the Simon Skojdt Assembly Hall floor, while Wiseman had three while only playing nine minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Moren keeping the four-out offense from last season, whoever is playing in the paint will need to keep defensive eyes off players in 3-point range. The Hoosiers went 15-35 for 42.9% from behind the arc, and if that shooting continues \u2014 especially a 5 for 8 performance from Shay Ciezki \u2014 Moren will be wanting to play Socka-Nguemen for most of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with the bigs, three other Hoosiers finished the game in foul trouble. Sophomore Valentyna Kadlecova started the game, but her third foul came with 8:49 remaining in the third quarter with Indiana up 52-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sophomore Chloe Spreen and senior Jerni Kiaku were the other two Hoosiers with three fouls. They both mostly played in the fourth quarter when the starters exited the game. \u00a0<\/p>\n
With the rotation trimming down by the start of the season, will Moren be able to trust the pieces further down the bench to stay clean?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The win was a great start to the 2025-26 campaign, even if it does not count in the official standings. With eight new players joining the team, Moren must trust her players to play clean against bigger, stronger and better competition later this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe confidence can only come from your work,\u201d Moren said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although it is an exhibition game against a Division II opponent, Indiana women\u2019s basketball has a problem that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-245606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}