The Indiana Women’s Basketball season unofficially tips off tomorrow with the Hoosiers’ first exhibition game versus Missouri S&T. New for this season at Hoosier Huddle is the Countdown to Tip-off which will feature each member of the men’s and women’s basketball squad as we await the season. Today we feature Duquesne transfer Jerni Kiaku.
Name: Jerni Kiaku
Height: 5’7”
Hometown/High School: Garner, North Carolina/Garner Magnet HS
Class: Senior
Position: Guard
Jerni Kiaku chose IU women’s basketball as her third and final landing spot for her college basketball career. The 5-foot-7 guard was a key contributor her freshman and sophomore seasons at North Carolina Central. She landed at Duquesne for the 2024-25 season where she averaged 13.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.7 assist, and 1.1 steals while shooting 47.1 percent, according to IUHoosiers.com.
Kiaku is not only a confident, efficient shooter, but also a very good defender— undoubtedly the reason head Coach Teri Moren and staff handpicked her from the transfer portal.
“She’s quick,” Moren told Austin Render on The Dribble Drive Podcast. “She’s used to picking up the ball 94 feet, applying pressure from a defensive standpoint. She’s very fast in the open floor. I think she is aggressive also in the open floor.”
Kiaku has made a lot of progress and adapted to Moren’s style of play this offseason and is expected to play point guard.
“She’s gotten much better since she’s been here with some decision making (with) some choices that she does have to make inside of our offense and decision making that she has to make.” Moren said. “She’s improved in that. The one area that we have to continue to challenge her on is just her voice, and that’s just her communicating at a high level both offensively and defensively.”
“You know, it’s a tall task to run our team if you’re going to play at that PG spot because we run a lot of different things.” Moren explained on The Dribble Drive Podcast. “Our action, there’s a lot of that. So her being able to get us into offense when we flatline, when we try to play fast and we flatline, and there’s nothing there, how can we pull that thing back out? Who can organize us? And so her biggest challenge right now is finding her voice and being comfortable using her voice.”
Learn more about Jerni Kiaku in the new “Meet the Hoosiers” social media series here.
The Hoosiers open the regular season vs Lipscomb at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on November 4th.
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