The honors have rolled in for Mackenzie Holmes since she first arrived at the University of Indiana. Three Big Ten first-team selections. One Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year award. And an Associated Press first-team All-American pick.

It’s been a remarkable career, perhaps the best a Maine player has put together. And now it enters its final run.

Holmes and the Indiana women’s basketball team are set to write their final chapter together as the Gorham native will lead the Hoosiers into the NCAA Tournament. Indiana, a fourth seed in the Albany (New York) region, will play No. 13 Fairfield in a home game in Bloomington at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Any game now could be Holmes’ last as a Hoosier. And the 6-foot-3 forward is ready to take her team as far as it can go – and soak everything in along the way.

“Anyone who knows me knows how much IU means to me, how much I love being a Hoosier and everything about it,” she said. “To be able to have this opportunity to (potentially) play two more games at Assembly Hall is a blessing for me, and getting the last chance to be in such a special tournament like March Madness, that not everyone gets to play in, is really special.”

Holmes said she tried to limit those moments of reflection during the season, and focus on another promising Indiana campaign.

“The way that the college season goes, you don’t have much time to think about those things,” she said. “But it has crossed my mind a couple of times. It’s really not been the forefront of my focus, just because I don’t want to think about it too much, I don’t want to miss out on the moments I have now with the team.”

Focus wasn’t a problem for Holmes during the season. She averaged 20 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, and maintained her trademark shooting efficiency by leading the nation in field goal percentage at 66.7%. On Wednesday, she earned AP third-team All-American status, and she has been selected as one of 15 candidates for the Wooden Award, given to the country’s top player.

Holmes became Indiana’s all-time leading scorer during the season, and currently sits at 2,476 career points.

“We feel like we have the best (center) in the country,” Indiana Coach Teri Moren said. “That’s how we think of Mackenzie.”

The final weeks of Holmes’ career, however, took an all-too-familiar turn. A left knee injury that hampered Holmes in her previous two seasons, and which required surgery in 2022, resurfaced again late in a Senior Night victory over Maryland, and led to her playing only five minutes in a 69-56 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament.

Moren described the knee injury as “a kneecap that wants to shift in and out.” Holmes declined to go into detail about the injury, but acknowledged a sense of dread when she felt the feeling she’s come to know too well.

“Of course, it’s an injury, so whenever an injury happens at that point in the year a lot of thoughts cross your mind,” she said. “But we have a great medical staff and training staff here, so I was confident they would … do what was necessary to get me back on the floor.”

After two and a half weeks, Holmes said she’s ready to go, and that she’s feeling better than she did at this point last year, when the knee forced her to miss one of Indiana’s two NCAA Tournament games.

“I’ve really spent these last couple of weeks trying to get healthy, trying to continue to feel good, keep gaining confidence and strength in my leg,” she said. “… I’m now in practices doing pretty much everything, so I’m feeling a lot better this March than I was last March, which is a great thing for me.”

Holmes has preferred to keep her focus on the upcoming games, which will allow the Hoosiers to open their championship pursuit in the embrace of the fans at Assembly Hall, where they haven’t lost this season.

There was doubt Indiana would grab the top-four seed it needed to host. Once the seeds were revealed, however, the Hoosiers were thrilled – none more than Holmes.

“I don’t like the way I left things on Senior Night, obviously going out with an injury is not ideal,” she said. “Hosting was something I wanted, just to get the chance to play in front of Hoosier Nation hopefully two more times. I hope they show out for us. I know they will.”

Indiana’s last loss at home came in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, when the top-seeded Hoosiers were upset by No. 9 Miami, 70-68. Holmes battled through her injury to score 22 points with nine rebounds, but the loss stung, and the tone in Holmes’ voice revealed the pain hasn’t faded.

“I don’t think that that is a memory we all would like to ever bring up again,” she said. “It happened, we learned from it. If we think too much about it, I don’t think it has the most positive effects on a lot of us, mentally.”

Holmes’ focus, instead, is on the path ahead, and on writing a more fitting ending both for her team and her college career.

“Every year you go into it with the thought of playing in that first weekend in April, and that’s been my mindset each and every year I’ve been at IU,” she said. “I’m not trying to put too much pressure on myself or think about the fact that it is my last tournament. (I’m) just keeping that same mindset I’ve had since the very first tournament I played in.”

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

Wednesday’s college roundup: Grambling State wins First Four game in OT, 88-81

Next »

York’s Brady Cummins helps Colgate land berth in NCAA men’s tournament