When Purdue plays Wisconsin Sunday, it’ll mark the final game in Mackey Arena for a trio of seniors.
April Wilson, Torrie Thornton and Hayden Hamby will suit up one final time in West Lafayette, but they’ll do so knowing that they were instrumental to putting Purdue in position to continue playing into March.
Purdue (18-10 overall, 9-8 in the Big Ten) needs a win over Wisconsin (7-20, 3-14) to bolster its résumé – and avoid a second bad loss to the Badgers – for Selection Monday. The Boilermakers had finished only 11-20 a year earlier, with just three Big Ten wins.
“I think these three were really the charge in turning it around from last year, leaving their legacy of tripling our wins in the Big Ten, which is very tough when you come from last and can finish sixth, that’s a huge, huge jump,” Coach Sharon Versyp said. “You can’t say enough about them as people and can’t say enough about them, especially how they finished their senior years.”
That’s what it is about for Wilson, leaving a legacy. She didn’t want to be part of a group that left Purdue on a losing season, or back-to-back ones. So getting back to the tournament, even as a bubble team, is a step in the right direction.
“It would be a great feeling,” Wilson said. “Coach is always talking about leaving your legacy and being a name to remember here, a class to remember, so it would be an awesome feeling, especially from the year we had, to be able to flip it and turn it around and do great things this season.”
Following is a look at Purdue’s three seniors.
April Wilson
For April Wilson and the rest of her teammates, this moment started nearly 11 months ago, when the Boilermakers started their offseason program coming off a 20-loss record.
They worked hard.
And Wilson was the centerpiece. But to accomplish what she wanted to – get Purdue to 20 wins and back into the NCAA Tournament – she needed to make some individual changes, as well. She cut out some distractions, like Twitter, and got herself in the best shape possible. And she took another step in leadership, vowing not to keep quiet during difficult times but speak up. Even if that meant stepping on some toes.
It’s paid off. Purdue is on the verge of 20 victories and the NCAA Tournament – the two might be linked – as the calendar approaches March.
“I think that April has been that person we can look towards, because of last year,” teammate Ashley Morrissette said. “She went through it last year with us, so she knows she didn’t want that to happen again. She didn’t want us to go on a slide all the way toward the end of the season into the Big Ten Tournament and having then to try to come out of that."
Wilson’s not only led with words, though, but action. The point guard is playing at an all-time personal level, maybe worthy of first-team All-Big Ten consideration, leading Purdue in points (14.5), assists (5.7) and steals (2.2), likely to become the first to do so since Katie Douglas in 2000-01.
Wilson it a bit of a downturn in the middle of the Big Ten, coinciding with Purdue’s five-game losing streak – the two are likely directly linked, as Wilson’s been the Boilermakers’ driving force – but has recovered of late. In the last three games, she’s averaging 14 points, being more aggressive again, and has four three-pointers.
“I derailed a little bit,” Wilson said. “I was still a leader of this team, still a captain, I just wasn’t doing the things I was doing at the beginning of the season. It was just about getting back to how I was playing basketball and it started with defense and scoring the ball and assisting and being the great leader I was at the beginning of the season.”
Wilson will leave Purdue as one of its best point guards, having totaled 1,143 points, 495 assists and 207 steals to date in her career. But more than the numbers, she wants to be remembered for getting the Boilermakers back to the NCAA Tournament, after missing it last season.
“It’s a great feeling to get back, because at Purdue we make the Tournament every year,” Wilson said. “Last year was just like ‘What happened to Purdue?’ Because we make it every year. We’re not in the position we want to be in, but we’re grateful to be able to have the opportunity to make it.”
Torrie Thornton
Torrie Thornton is 23.
Her body, however, might be significantly older.
It’s got bad knees, after double surgery a few years ago, and a foot that needed repaired late last season. She’s sore too frequently, needing constant trips to the training room for treatment.
And it doesn’t help probably that Purdue has asked the athletic 6-foot forward to play an undersized 5 position this season, taking on the best centers in the Big Ten.
“Some days I come in there and say I feel 60, some days it’s 30,” she said with a smile, “but never quite 23.”
Thornton’s giving it about all her body can take. She’s averaging about 15 minutes per game, having started 21, while averaging 3.1 points and 3.1 rebounds. But her impact is going to show up in more than the numbers; defensively, she’s had great outings, like holding Chatrice White in check in an early win over Illinois or keeping Nebraska’s Jessica Shepard to only two in a critical win last week.
“She gave us more than what I anticipated this year,” Versyp said. “She’s never satisfied, but she’s done a lot more than what we all thought. For her, it’s off the court, helping them with issues, all that stuff.”
Thornton says she holds high standards, and hasn’t met them, but is accepting.
“Coach and I talked not too long ago and she said ‘You’re doing a lot more than we ever would have expected you to be able to do, going through the surgeries you’ve been through’ and the pain that I continue to have,” Thornton said. “It’s kind of bittersweet, because of course I’d like to do more – I always want to do more – but I’m happy I got the opportunity to play this fifth year and do what I was able to do.”
Thornton almost didn’t play it. She had missed the end of last season with the foot injury and considered retirement, but made a “last-minute” decision to return for one more spin. And she wanted to be a significant contributor.
She’s been able to do that, even if it’s meant battling against much bigger opponents.
“It’s been tough,” she said. “I’ve surprised myself when how I’ve been able to defend some of the 5 plays in the Big Ten. I never thought I’d be a 5, but I’ve embraced it. It’s something that I’m proud of, that I was able to use my quickness when I can and do whatever I can for my team.”
Hayden Hamby
Hayden Hamby came to Purdue as a scorer.
Like, big-time.
As a senior in Alabama, the 5-7 guard averaged nearly 35 points per game, scoring almost 1,200 in her last season. She had 4,485 points for her career, the second-most in state history.
But that’s not been her role as a Boilermaker, an adjustment that’s been years in the making and continues on even now.
“It was tough obviously,” Hamby said. “That’s a hard adjustment. Being honest, I struggle with it still. It’s hard. But I knew that’s what they wanted from me, so you have to accept it.”
Although it’s been tough, Hamby has found her niche. This season, she’s come off the bench to average about 17 minutes per game, averaging a career-best 4.1 points per game. At times, she’s given the Boilermakers a nice shot in the arm offensively, usually with a big three-pointer here or there that has proven to make a big difference in the final analysis.
Hamby’s shot 34 percent from three-point range this season, a statistic that shows her growth – and ability to adjust her game. In high school, she was a driver, slashing to the basket to get buckets, or getting into the lane off the bounce.
But the physicality of the Big Ten proved too much for her to use that style, at least consistently, to score. So she’s worked hard to develop a better perimeter game.
“Freshman year, I got the idea that my job was to catch-and-shoot more than put it on the floor and drive in to 6-foot-5 people in there,” she said. “I think I realized it pretty early on, didn’t necessarily want to accept it right away. But I picked up that that’s what they wanted.
“It definitely wasn’t easy. It was a hard adjustment.”
It was a little easier this season. In an eight-game stretch through December into January, Hamby averaged nearly five-and-a-half points, settling in as a perimeter threat and giving quality minutes. Then, however, she was shelved, having torn her plantar fasciitis in her foot, a painful injury that cost her the next 11 games.
Hamby has been back for four games, but has been shutout the last two, not quite yet getting back to the level of impact of before.
“It was hard, I didn’t foresee this happening my senior year,” she said. “It was tough to watch the games and have to sit on the bench for that long in conference. It was hard. And coming back is never easy because you’re not 100 percent when you come back, so that was difficult too.”
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