Teri Moren challenged her posts. Karoline Striplin took that to heart in Big Ten opener.

Teri Moren had a challenge for her posts.

After a near-loss to Southern Indiana earlier this week, the longtime IU head coach wondered if her bigs, Lilly Meister and Karoline Striplin, were ready for Big Ten play. She thought they had struggled creating a post presence against Southern Indiana — a team that starts five guards — in a comeback, four-point win over the Ohio Valley Conference members.

“I was disappointed in our post play,” Moren said following the Southern Indiana game. “I thought Lilly and Strip were just okay offensively, defensively. I think about some of the post players that we’re going to see in the Big Ten, right … we’re going to play against some of the best post players in the country, and we’ve got to be able to respond much better, and we got to help them as a staff.”

And Striplin took that challenge to heart.

The Tennessee transfer took over Indiana’s Big Ten opener against Penn State on Saturday afternoon, pouring in 27 points (two short of her career high of 29) on perfect 12-of-12 shooting to lead the Hoosiers (7-3, 1-0) to a 75-60 win over the Nittany Lions. It was Indiana’s seventh-straight conference-opening victory, dating back to 2018.

“Me and Lilly both took that challenge to heart,” Striplin said following the Penn State game. “It definitely hurts when your coach is specifically challenging you both to do better, and we definitely wanted to show up for her. We got into the gym and worked specifically on defense extra next to our offense, and think we just locked into our assignment and we knew what we had to do tonight.”

Striplin became the second player in program history to have a perfect shooting night (min. 10 attempts), joining program leading scorer and current graduate assistant Mackenzie Holmes. Holmes did it twice in her Indiana career, including a 13-13 game against Eastern Kentucky in 2020 and a 10-10 game against Auburn in 2022.

The secret? Confidence — both from herself and her coaches.

“It was all about confidence,” Striplin said. “When I got the ball, I was just shooting it confidently. A lot of my coaches had been pouring into me including Mack, so I just felt really confident both up there in the high post and the low.”

Striplin and Meister, who play in tandem in the post, had a tall task in the Big Ten opener: 6-foot-6 center Gracie Merkle.

Merkle was one of those dominant posts Moren was referring to on Wednesday — her height alone towers over a lot of other bigs in the conference. Merkle came into the conference opener averaging 19.8 points and eight rebounds per game with a strong post presence inside. But in Indiana’s 15-point win, Striplin and Meister held Merkle to 16 points and four rebounds while scoring 37 combined points — 27 for Striplin in 22 minutes and 10 for Meister in 17 minutes.

On Saturday, Moren got the type of game she was looking for from her bigs. Now, she just needs them to do it consistently.

“I think most great teams have a great balance of an inside presence and an outside presence,” Moren said following the Penn State game. “I thought particularly the other night against Southern Indiana, we had no post presence. But I thought Strip today, she had a special kind of day, and we need her and Lilly to be more consistent for us, night in and night out.”