BLOOMINGTON

Before the game, they were on the court as the team warmed up.

During the game, they captured the game on video or gave water or towels to the players.

After the game, they were among those celebrating the big win with red and white streamers strewn around them on the court.

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For Jackson County natives Seth Stuckwisch and Kasandra Rieckers, seeing the Indiana University women’s basketball team win the school’s first Women’s National Invitation Tournament title Saturday is a moment they won’t forget.

Serving as managers for the past three years, they have worked with the coaching staff and players during practices and games, so they know all of the work everyone puts in for the season.

“We’re sitting there in the middle of January, we’re struggling. They decided then and there, ‘This is not how our season is going to go,’ and they put their heads down and they went to work, and it really paid off for them,” said Stuckwisch, a 2015 graduate of Seymour High School.

“No one deserves it more than them, the players all the way up to the staff,” he said of the WNIT title. “I’ve been literally blessed to be a part of this, and I’m so thankful that they give me the opportunity to be around them.”

Rieckers, a 2015 graduate of Brownstown Central High School, said it was great to see the team come together down the stretch. The Hoosiers won 15 of their last 17 games, including the six WNIT games on their home court.

In Saturday’s championship game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, they defeated Virginia Tech 65-57.

“It’s just absolutely awesome because I know how much work they’ve put in day in and day out,” Rieckers said. “They’ve worked so hard for this. They are just very deserving.”

As a longtime Hoosiers fan, the win meant a lot to Rieckers personally.

“Growing up less than an hour from Bloomington and coming to IU basketball games ever since I was a kid, it’s just awesome,” she said.

Indiana head coach Teri Moren is a 1987 Seymour High School graduate, so having the connection with her of being from Jackson County also is special to Stuckwisch and Rieckers.

“Teri is really great to work for. Our entire staff and all of the players are just incredibly nice, and the whole experience is just so humbling,” Rieckers said.

“She is the smartest basketball mind I’ve ever seen,” Stuckwisch said of Moren. “Just to be able to learn from her and the things she is able to do … it’s just truly amazing, and it just shows how hard she works every day. It’s just really, really cool to be around her.”