Maya Makalusky Growing into Her Role in Second Year

Indiana’s Maya Makalusky is coming off a Freshman All-Big Ten season after her first season in Bloomington. The Fishers, Indiana native was one of the bright spots in an otherwise disappointing season for the Hoosiers last year. Now in her second season under Teri Moren’s tutelage, Makalusky is looking to build on her role.

The expectations for Makalusky were high coming off a prep career where she was named Ms. Indiana Basketball. Last season she played herself into a starting role and played in all 32 games (22 starts) for the Hoosiers. Makalusky averaged 9.7 points per game, but she knew there was room for growth this season.

“I think I came in a completely different person and player,” Makalusky said after Indiana’s win over Southern Illinois. “Just the maturity level and the experience I got from last year. There was a lot of mistakes but there was a lot of growth that came with the mistakes.”

Makalusky has started both of Indiana’s first two games this season and has seen improvements on both offense and defense. She had her best game offensively against the Salukis scoring 12 points incuding three three-pointers. She also grabbed seven rebounds in 22 minutes.

“Obviously we wanted to come out strong and kind of hit them first.” Makalusky said. “I think that comes with passing the ball to each other and just instilling that confidence in each other.”

Indiana head coach Teri Moren credits four veteran transfers that have helped Makalusky grow in her second year and coach Moren is seeing that early on the court.

“Maya, you know, kids that have been in our program for at least a year to return and and feel a lot more confident and I think just more comfortable in the system,” Moren said. “Whether it’s offensively, whether it’s defensively as far as focus and game planning and understanding matchups, understanding coverages. I thought today we found her in space, which, you know, when she gets her feet set it’s hard to argue that she’s not one of the best shooters in the country.”

The early returns on Makalusky have been solid and she will continue to grow her game as the season rolls along. Indiana is 2-0 and has games with Bradley (Mon.), Samford (Friday) and Milwaukee (Sun) this week.