Locals shoot hoops with IU women’s basketball players at Hoopbus event on Kirkwood
The social media-famous Hoopbus brought a yellow school bus and a chance to shoot baskets with IU women’s basketball players to Bloomington on Tuesday evening. The event was part of Hoopbus’s tour around Indiana to drum up enthusiasm before the WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis on Saturday.


The social media-famous, California-based nonprofit Hoopbus brought a yellow school bus and a chance to shoot baskets with Indiana University women’s basketball players to Bloomington on Tuesday evening.
The event, held on Kirkwood Avenue just outside Sample Gates, was part of Hoopbus’s tour around Indiana to drum up enthusiasm before the WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis on Saturday. It also fit neatly into Bloomington’s efforts to bring a lively string of events to the stretches of Kirkwood that are closed to vehicle traffic for the summer.
Setup began around 5 p.m. under an overcast sky, and it wasn’t long before a small but steady stream of spectators—from lifelong IU women’s basketball fans to passersby toting pizza slices and shopping bags—gathered around the bus. A few brave onlookers lined up to shoot hoops.
Hoopbus impact director Chantelle Anderson, who starred on Vanderbilt University’s women’s basketball team and played for six years in the WNBA, egged on the participants and kicked off the event with a rousing introduction.
She had a message for the IU players, too: “In college, you have an opportunity to be best friends, to really build that family atmosphere, to really go to bat for each other in a way that is really special.”
After Anderson’s speech, soon-to-be sixth grader Katie Kent took a few shots—at first hesitant, then bolder—but kept falling short. Finally, on her fourth try, the ball spiraled down the hoop.
Katie said the event’s main draw, for her, was meeting players on the IU women’s team. She’s been to “every single one” of their home games this year, she said.
“We’ve been season ticket holders for a few years,” added Katie’s mom, Rebecca White. “We’ve been there from the days when the crowds were really tiny all the way till now.”
The IU women had an up-and-down season last year that fell just short of the Sweet 16 — the team’s seventh NCAA tournament appearance during its decadelong rise to dominance under coach Teri Moren. Next season’s team is five weeks into their eight-week summer training, and the players took the chance to unwind at Tuesday’s event, roughhousing under the hoop and filming TikTok dances outside the bus.
Point guard Shay Ciezki, one of two seniors on the IU team and a star shooter, faced off with Naudgee Carpenter, a Hoopbus captain who calls himself “the shiftiest bus driver in America.” He scored on her several times while she played defense, but she sent several shots arcing over his shoulder in return.
“He almost broke my ankles,” Ciezki said. “A little scary, but, you know, I got a couple buckets on him, so it was good.”
Incoming freshman Maya Makalusky, who started training with the team in Bloomington this summer, said the evening “was a great opportunity to get to know the community around us.”
Retired Jackson Creek Middle School science teacher Nancy R. Martin, a loyal IU basketball fan, watched the players shoot hoops—50 years after her own time playing for the Cream and Crimson.
Sherry and Tom Figura were visiting from Indianapolis for their younger daughter’s freshman orientation at IU. They’ve been attending IU women’s basketball games since the team won the WNIT in 2018, so when Sherry Figura saw the Hoopbus event advertised on social media, she knew she had to bring her husband along.
“I made him drive by, and I’m like, we’ve got to go see ’em,” she said.
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