Senior guard Adrianne Thomas dribbles the ball during a women’s basketball game against Utah. The Sun Devils started their season with a new transfer student from Highland, Ill., named Katie Hempen. (Photo by State Press Staff)
When you’re forced to sit out a year, you come back even hungrier.
Such is the case with ASU women’s basketball’s Katie Hempen, a redshirt sophomore guard who transferred to ASU after her freshman year at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
The Highland, Ill., native was redshirted last year per NCAA transfer rules. Coach Charli Turner Thorne said Hempen used that year to become a brand new basketball player. She even earned ASU’s most improved player award despite not playing in a single game last year.
“She worked harder than any redshirt I’ve ever had,” Turner Thorne said. “I also think having the redshirt year allowed her to really gel with the team and build relationships with the rest of the coaching staff.”
Turner Thorne said Hempen’s exceptional work ethic allowed her to work day after day on her shooting. But Hempen said it wasn’t easy.
“I had to be told by (Turner Thorne) for me to take a day off,” Hempen said. “Worked on finishing, worked on anything you could possibly think of, I worked on it. It was every single day.”
Hempen, who was named the Ohio Valley Conference Freshman of the Year, was third on her team at SIUE with 9.7 points per game. She also led the team in free throw percentage, shooting 86 percent from the charity stripe.
Current ASU associate head coach Amanda Levens was Hempen’s coach at SIUE before they both came to Tempe in 2012.
Hempen’s connection with Levens was the main factor in her desire to play at the next level.
“I knew that coach Levens could bring out the best in me,” Hempen said. “That’s always nice to know what you want from a coach.”
But knowing her future associate head coach didn’t make the choice any easier.
“I can say that it was the hardest decision I’ve made in my life right now, just because I had a great team at SIUE, and I still talk to a lot of girls there,” Hempen said.
Hempen scored 12 points on 5-12 shooting in ASU's season-opening rout of Hawaii on Nov. 9, her first game in the Sun Devil uniform. Levens said Hempen used her redshirt year to develop as a shooter, something that has already shown in the nonconference schedule.
“She’s more consistent as a shooter than she was her freshman year, because she put in a lot of time last year,” Levens said. “Sitting out a year makes you very hungry and motivated and you get to watch the game from a completely different side than you do as a player.”
Another added bonus of the redshirt year was extra time to develop to Turner Thorne’s unique defensive schemes.
“We had something like it at SIUE, not as intense,” Hempen said. “This defense makes you get up and pressure people and get them out of their comfort zone.”
Levens, who played basketball at ASU and was coached by Turner Thorne in the early 2000s, coached a similar defensive strategy at SIUE. Turner Thorne said playing for Levens made the transition into the system at ASU easier.
“(Levens) played for me and (Levens) taught a lot of the same principles,” Turner Thorne said. “A lot of the things that (Hempen) was taught in college carried over to here.”
The ASU women’s basketball team travels to San Diego Wednesday before flying to Texas Tech for a Sunday matchup against the Lady Raiders.
Reach the reporter at bmargiot@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @BenMargiott
