Hooper Keeps Shooting for Sky in Roller-Coaster WNBA Season

By Jeff Griesch
Huskers.com

Almost everyone in North America stopped to take a few moments out of their Monday to look up in the sky and experience a once-in-a-lifetime event as the sun and moon created a total solar eclipse.

For thousands of years, people have gazed upon eclipses with both hope and fear, inspiring dreams of divine intervention or dread of an impending apocalypse.

Former Husker women’s basketball All-American has had her own personal once-in-a-lifetime eclipse of a WNBA season involving the Sun, the Sky the Dream - and a little dread.

Hooper, who was the 2014 Big Ten Player-of-the-Year and a first-team All-American as a 6-foot-2 forward for the Huskers, opened her fourth WNBA season with the Dallas Wings after a successful 2016-17 overseas with the University of Istanbul club in Turkey.

Hooper suffered a late-season ankle injury in Turkey and opened WNBA training camp limited by the injury. She was able to make one exhibition appearance with the Wings before being abruptly cut at the end of camp.

For the fun-loving and goofy small-town girl from Alliance, Nebraska, the change was not a welcome one.

“It was hard getting cut because I was really committed to what we were doing in Dallas,” Hooper said by phone from Chicago shortly after Monday’s eclipse. “I started my career with them in Tulsa, then moved with the team to Arlington two years ago, so I had a couple really good friends with the Wings. It was hard just being cut like that, but it is part of professional sports so I have to deal with it.”

Hooper was picked up almost instantly by the Connecticut Sun, but her stay in the northeast was short lived. She played just three games and a total of 11 minutes with the Sun.

“I never really felt like I got a chance in Connecticut, but I definitely appreciated them picking me up right away,” Hooper said. “In the WNBA, if you are cut and not on a roster, it is kind of easy for the teams to forget about you, and you don’t ever get another chance.”

After her short stay in Connecticut, Hooper was traded to the Atlanta Dream. She found her way back into a somewhat regular playing rotation for the Dream, and her ankle injury continued to improve.

Her stay in Atlanta was highlighted by a season-high 13-point performance on 3-of-5 three-point shooting at Dallas on July 5.

“I knew I was on that game,” Hooper said. “In warm-ups I knew I was going to hit shots. I felt like I was at home because I had spent so much time in that gym, and I was really focused because I wanted to show Dallas that they should have kept me.”

In 15 games with the Dream, Hooper played a total of 102 minutes despite putting up an extremely productive 47 points. Although 3.1 points per game doesn’t sound like much, her 18.4 points per 40 minutes and her .429 three-point shooting (12-28) demonstrated her offensive firepower.

Despite being extremely productive in limited minutes, Hooper was traded again after a game against the Washington Mystics on July 30. This time to the Chicago Sky, her fourth WNBA team in 10 weeks.

“I am getting really good at packing and unpacking my car and getting it to a new city,” Hooper said. “I’ve become a pro at that. I mean, me and my car have been more places in the last year than my parents have been in their entire lives, so that is pretty interesting.”

The sudden changes for Hooper haven’t come without challenges.

“This season has been a huge roller-coaster with a lot of different emotions and stress off the basketball court,” Hooper said. “It’s been a really hard year in terms of trying to improve my game on the court, and sometimes it hasn’t been that much fun, but I’m learning a lot from it and it is making me stronger.”

For Hooper, who grew up on a ranch more than a half hour drive from Alliance, consistency and stability was a big part of her youth. That consistency carried over to her career at Nebraska, where she started 131 consecutive games in her four seasons, finishing No. 2 in school history with 2,357 points while adding 1,110 rebounds. She powered the Big Red to three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids, including the 2013 NCAA Sweet Sixteen. She also helped shoot the Huskers to the 2014 Big Ten Tournament title as a senior, finishing her four years in Lincoln with a school-record 295 three-pointers.

But the rapid change she has experienced this season in professional basketball is helping her grow as a person.

“I’m pretty quiet and reserved if I don’t really know you, so I don’t make friends super easy over a short amount of time, so that has been a challenge for me. I was at least in Atlanta long enough to make some friends,” Hooper said. “I know moving forward there are a couple girls from the Dream that I could count on if I needed something, so that is one really good thing that has come of all this. I have gotten to really know a lot more players in the league, rather than just playing against them for a couple times a year.”

Now that she has landed in Chicago with the Sky, Hooper is hoping to get a chance to find her niche in the final few games of the WNBA regular season while helping Chicago earn one of the league’s eight playoff spots.

“I feel like Chicago is giving me a real chance to show what I can do,” Hooper said. “I’m hoping Chicago is my team for a while, so I can get comfortable with what they are doing and help them build something here the rest of this season and moving forward.”

In five games with Chicago in August, Hooper has already played more minutes (116) than she played in her first 18 games this season with Connecticut (3 games, 11 minutes) and Atlanta (15 games, 102 minutes) combined. She has also helped the Sky to a 3-2 record as they try to push for a coveted playoff spot. Although Chicago is coming off a lopsided loss at home to Seattle on Sunday, Hooper played a season-high 24 minutes. In five games for the Sky, she is averaging 6.0 points and 1.6 rebounds in more than 20 minutes per game.

“I think we have a real shot to make the playoffs because I feel like we have some really good leaders on this team,” Hooper said. “Cappie (Pondexter) is a great player and Courtney Vandersloot is a great player and they both come to the gym and work hard on their games every day. They are not just putting in time because they have to, they are working to get better and setting great examples for the rest of the team. That kind of leadership makes a difference.”

With five regular-season games left, the Sky will need to make a strong push, beginning against one of Hooper’s former teams – Connecticut – on Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. After a Sunday showdown with the New York Liberty, Hooper gets another shot at her former team – Dallas – on Wednesday, Aug. 30 at Allstate Arena in Rosemont.

Hooper and the Sky will make their road trip to Minnesota on Sept. 1, before closing the regular season at home against Seattle on Sunday, Sept. 3, with a chance to avenge this past Sunday’s loss to the Storm.

If Chicago can climb past Dallas or Seattle in the final playoff spot, the WNBA playoffs start on Sept. 5.

After the end of her WNBA season, Hooper knows where her next basketball stop will be.

She hopes to get a week or two back in Nebraska before heading to Australia for her first WNBL season with the Canberra Capitals.

“I am really looking forward to going to Australia. Coach Goriss has been keeping in contact with me, and he keeps reassuring me that once I get to Canberra I am going to stay in Canberra, so I am looking forward to that. They have put together a team that is going to be pretty good, so I am excited to get there, work to improve my game and be a part of great team.”

Hooper, who played for Southeast Queensland and averaged 18.5 points and 8.6 rebounds in 2015-16, will join another former Husker All-America forward Kelsey Griffin in the WNBL this season. Griffin, who made her first appearance with the Australian National Team this summer and won MVP honors at the Asia Cup to help the Opals qualify for next summer’s World Cup in Spain, has been one of the league’s top players for the Bendigo Spirit since heading to Australia in 2012-13.

Hooper, who followed directly in Griffin’s footsteps on Nebraska’s roster, is looking forward to meeting her on the court this season.

“Kelsey is such a great player. We don’t really have the same games, but we share that Nebraska bond, so it will be cool to see her when Canberra takes on Bendigo,” Hooper said. “I am just going to play hard, play together and have fun once I get to Australia, and I’m guessing that’s the same way that she is going to play.”