Morrissette’s Journey Nears Peak
In the last game of her freshman season, Purdue tried to sub in Ashley Morrissette for the last two seconds of the Boilermakers' NCAA Tournament loss to Oklahoma State.
It was the end of a rookie year in which Morrissette, the Ohio Ms. Basketball, had averaged less than six minutes per game, not even getting off the bench in six contests.
That Cowgirls’ loss in Mackey Arena being one of them.
Morrissette didn’t check in.
“At that moment it was like, ‘Do I want to stay? Do I want to go?’” said Morrissette, who will play her last regular-season game in Mackey Arena on Sunday, as her and fellow captain Bridget Perry are honored on senior day. “But I definitely had a talk with Coach (Sharon Versyp) and we both said things to each other. You’ve got to be able to talk to your coaches. She showed trust in me and I showed loyalty, and here we are today.”
Purdue’s glad Morrissette stayed. And Morrissette is too. The Twinsburg, Ohio native will leave the Boilermakers being a top-20 scorer — she has 1,283 points, passing Kelly Komara with her 23 points vs. Minnesota Thursday night to move into 18th place all-time — and she’s a potential first-team All-Big Ten selection in 2017. This season, the guard is averaging 16.2 points, 4.6 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game, plus her 72 total steals ranks third in the Big Ten. And she’s done so while playing at the point, rather than in her more natural off-guard position.
While the senior year has been fantastic, the journey to get here wasn’t exactly what Morrissette envisioned. She didn’t play much in the second half of her freshman year, getting in only for spot minutes here or there. Early in the season, she had a four-game stretch in which she scored a total of 43 points, but then she had 14 points the rest of the year, in a span of 23 games.
“It made me realize that obviously I wasn’t where I needed to be yet,” she said. “I think the coaches knew that; obviously I didn’t. But you know when you’re a freshman, you think you’re going to just come out and ball on everybody.”
Morrissette’s pleased to have stuck it out. By sophomore year, she was a starter, averaging 11 points per game; it was up to 13 last season, before this year’s bust-out performance in which she’s become one of the Big Ten’s more dynamic players.
“When I was a freshman and came in here, I had a lot of big goals and big dreams,” she said. “To have some of them realized as a senior is just amazing. The progress, the journey, has obviously been the best part. We haven’t reached our final destination yet, but we’re going to keep working, keep pushing. Everything isn’t over yet.”
Work Marks Perry’s Tenure
Bridget Perry remembers her first all-night study session.
It was freshman year, when Perry, a biomedical engineering student, needed to stay up all night. And the next day, she had basketball practice, a grueling challenge where she struggled to keep her eyes open and get her body moving.
Former athletic director Morgan Burke was there, and wondered why this freshman couldn’t even get her head up.
“I was like ‘Hi,’ Perry said, barely mumbling out the word. “He was like, ‘What’s wrong with her?’ And someone said, ‘She didn’t sleep last night.’”
But that’s the way it’s been over the years. Perry has balanced academics with athletics, pulling all nighters at times but still turning in solid performances. The forward is closing in on 1,000 career points, now needing 52 to become the 31st player in school history to hit the milestone.
The Mooresville, Ind., native has been a steady performer throughout her career, and this season is averaging 10.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.
It seems like yesterday that she was a freshman, she says.
“It went by really fast,” Perry said. “But at the same time, you kind of expect it. I’m kind of ready for another chapter but at the same time, I’m kind of blown away by how fast it went. Each season, as it’s gone on, has gone faster and faster and faster.”
But Perry has long felt like a Boilermaker, even longer than the last four years. She received her first recruiting letter after eighth grade, then came to camps on West Lafayette’s campus — at one of them, she met and roomed with Morrissette — and found she liked the Boilermakers.
The academic component helped, too.
“I really wanted to do something with a degree and go to a fantastic school, because at the end of the day you can’t play basketball forever,” Perry said. “I thought that was so important. That’s one of the things that sold me at Purdue, the emphasis on getting a great degree, not just a simple degree. There were girls (on the team) in pre-med, engineering, a variety of majors, and other places, you saw the same (majors), which isn’t always the best sign. It was a huge thing here. I’ve grown with it and I really like that I can make a difference in people’s lives being a biomedical engineer.”
Perry wouldn’t change it, not even the balance between athletics and academics that has consumed so much of her time.
“I knew it would be hard,” she said, “but when you’re being recruited, you try to figure out how hard it’s going to be. But you really don’t know until you’re in the storm, honestly.
“That’s probably the best thing I can tell anyone who is being recruited, just build up a work ethic. I worked really hard in basketball and school (in high school), and I just kind of continued that here. I had really good habits. I didn’t imagine it would be this hard, but there are some nights and days it was really hard. It’s how I made friends, though, in my major. Those are the nights I remember.”
In the last game of her freshman season, Purdue tried to sub in Ashley Morrissette for the last two seconds of the Boilermakers' NCAA Tournament loss to Oklahoma State.
It was the end of a rookie year in which Morrissette, the Ohio Ms. Basketball, had averaged less than six minutes per game, not even getting off the bench in six contests.
That Cowgirls’ loss in Mackey Arena being one of them.
Morrissette didn’t check in.
“At that moment it was like, ‘Do I want to stay? Do I want to go?’” said Morrissette, who will play her last regular-season game in Mackey Arena on Sunday, as her and fellow captain Bridget Perry are honored on senior day. “But I definitely had a talk with Coach (Sharon Versyp) and we both said things to each other. You’ve got to be able to talk to your coaches. She showed trust in me and I showed loyalty, and here we are today.”
Purdue’s glad Morrissette stayed. And Morrissette is too. The Twinsburg, Ohio native will leave the Boilermakers being a top-20 scorer — she has 1,283 points, passing Kelly Komara with her 23 points vs. Minnesota Thursday night to move into 18th place all-time — and she’s a potential first-team All-Big Ten selection in 2017. This season, the guard is averaging 16.2 points, 4.6 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game, plus her 72 total steals ranks third in the Big Ten. And she’s done so while playing at the point, rather than in her more natural off-guard position.
While the senior year has been fantastic, the journey to get here wasn’t exactly what Morrissette envisioned. She didn’t play much in the second half of her freshman year, getting in only for spot minutes here or there. Early in the season, she had a four-game stretch in which she scored a total of 43 points, but then she had 14 points the rest of the year, in a span of 23 games.
“It made me realize that obviously I wasn’t where I needed to be yet,” she said. “I think the coaches knew that; obviously I didn’t. But you know when you’re a freshman, you think you’re going to just come out and ball on everybody.”
Morrissette’s pleased to have stuck it out. By sophomore year, she was a starter, averaging 11 points per game; it was up to 13 last season, before this year’s bust-out performance in which she’s become one of the Big Ten’s more dynamic players.
“When I was a freshman and came in here, I had a lot of big goals and big dreams,” she said. “To have some of them realized as a senior is just amazing. The progress, the journey, has obviously been the best part. We haven’t reached our final destination yet, but we’re going to keep working, keep pushing. Everything isn’t over yet.”
Work Marks Perry’s Tenure
Bridget Perry remembers her first all-night study session.
It was freshman year, when Perry, a biomedical engineering student, needed to stay up all night. And the next day, she had basketball practice, a grueling challenge where she struggled to keep her eyes open and get her body moving.
Former athletic director Morgan Burke was there, and wondered why this freshman couldn’t even get her head up.
“I was like ‘Hi,’ Perry said, barely mumbling out the word. “He was like, ‘What’s wrong with her?’ And someone said, ‘She didn’t sleep last night.’”
But that’s the way it’s been over the years. Perry has balanced academics with athletics, pulling all nighters at times but still turning in solid performances. The forward is closing in on 1,000 career points, now needing 52 to become the 31st player in school history to hit the milestone.
The Mooresville, Ind., native has been a steady performer throughout her career, and this season is averaging 10.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.
It seems like yesterday that she was a freshman, she says.
“It went by really fast,” Perry said. “But at the same time, you kind of expect it. I’m kind of ready for another chapter but at the same time, I’m kind of blown away by how fast it went. Each season, as it’s gone on, has gone faster and faster and faster.”
But Perry has long felt like a Boilermaker, even longer than the last four years. She received her first recruiting letter after eighth grade, then came to camps on West Lafayette’s campus — at one of them, she met and roomed with Morrissette — and found she liked the Boilermakers.
The academic component helped, too.
“I really wanted to do something with a degree and go to a fantastic school, because at the end of the day you can’t play basketball forever,” Perry said. “I thought that was so important. That’s one of the things that sold me at Purdue, the emphasis on getting a great degree, not just a simple degree. There were girls (on the team) in pre-med, engineering, a variety of majors, and other places, you saw the same (majors), which isn’t always the best sign. It was a huge thing here. I’ve grown with it and I really like that I can make a difference in people’s lives being a biomedical engineer.”
Perry wouldn’t change it, not even the balance between athletics and academics that has consumed so much of her time.
“I knew it would be hard,” she said, “but when you’re being recruited, you try to figure out how hard it’s going to be. But you really don’t know until you’re in the storm, honestly.
“That’s probably the best thing I can tell anyone who is being recruited, just build up a work ethic. I worked really hard in basketball and school (in high school), and I just kind of continued that here. I had really good habits. I didn’t imagine it would be this hard, but there are some nights and days it was really hard. It’s how I made friends, though, in my major. Those are the nights I remember.”
