After sitting out, Hoover is ready to roll
WBB: The freshman forward missed last season with a torn ACL
Murray State’s season officially ended on March 22nd with a loss to Iowa in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. While it may have gone unnoticed by many in attendance that day in Norman, Oklahoma, one Racer had a very big win.
Freshman forward Cam Hoover was in uniform for the game for the first time all season. She tore her ACL two days into summer workouts and would be forced to take a medical redshirt. After rehabbing for nine months, Murray State’s doctors and training staff had fully cleared her to return to basketball activities just before the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Hoover had gone through simple shooting drills during pregame warmups for a couple weeks prior to being cleared, but for those games, she would always go back into the locker room and change into a t-shirt and leggings. At the NCAA Tournament, at long last, she put her uniform on, and kept it on, for the entire game, supporting her teammates from the bench.
“I loved it,” Hoover gushed. “I was super excited when they told me I could do that. To have an experience like that, to let me dress the whole time — I'm happy to wear my shorts and stand on the side, just to feel that part. That's something that people probably don't consider, but that was huge for me. Getting shots up is just something that you miss, so that was awesome.”
“We talked through it with Greg (Jocelyn), our trainer, and he's like, ‘I'm good with it if you are,’” Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner said. “I think it just gave her a sense of ownership, a sense of belonging, to be able to put the uniform on to go through warm-ups. I know her teammates were extremely excited about having her out there and I think it just made the fire burn a little more, because she's like, ‘OK, my next step is going to be actually wearing this warm-up and playing in a game here.’ It's just part of the process, but I think mentally, as much as anything, that gave her a really big boost.”
A boost is something Hoover needed after her lengthy journey of rehabbing her right knee. She hadn’t even learned her way around campus last summer when her season ended before it even started because of that torn ACL. On top of trying to get healthy, Hoover wasn’t able to get on the court during the winningest season in program history. As physically challenging as the last 11 months have been, it might have been even tougher between the ears.
“I would say it's been a year of learning and growth mentally, for sure,” Hoover said. “I think it was a big adjustment sitting on the side, kind of taking things slower, just watching. It was definitely a devastating thing that happened. No one wants it to happen. I think it was just a lot of growth. Then, over time, I was just learning more about myself mentally, what I was going through. Physically, I was getting stronger, (and I’m) still trying to get stronger.”
As you can imagine, an ACL tear is tough on any player. When it’s a freshman that tears it in their first week on campus, you could argue that it’s even tougher. There were some dark days emotionally, and Hoover says she spent a fair amount of time leaning on Murray State Assistant Coach Monica Evans.
“I've had lots of tears in Monica's office,” Hoover chuckled. “Lots of good moments too — the small wins we'd always talk about. Monica can always talk to you about anything, and she was always there for me, which is really good for me to have her.”
“The biggest thing is Coach (Turner) and I set that foundation early,” Evans added. “We know that one of the biggest hurdles for them to get over (after an ACL tear) is the mental part of it. With Cam, her hang-up was, ‘I did this at my first open gym.’ I was very honest and said, ‘I've never had an ACL tear, but in the 30 years (I’ve coached), I have had so many. Going through that, it was about the mental aspect and helping them navigate getting over that hurdle as much as anything else.’ I told her from the very beginning, ‘You're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days, and in those bad days, don't you leave this gym — because that's when that fear and the doubt creep in. You don't leave that gym. If you want to, I encourage you to come and let it out.’ They know (my office) is a safe space. We can cry, scream, yell. It's all of the above, but it's a matter of encouraging them to get it out versus holding it in. I'm thankful that she took me up on that part, because that has really, really strengthened our relationship.”
Building relationships is one of the core principles of Rechelle Turner’s program. Obviously, playing basketball is a central piece of the head coach/player relationship. Hoover and Turner had to take a little different path in the last year as they got to know each other better.
“One thing over the years that I have have tried to do when a player gets hurt, I've tried to immediately make sure they understand how much a part of the team that they still are,” Turner said. “I ask them to do certain things for us in practice, to chart certain things for me. Then as they start rehabbing, and as they start getting released to do more and more, I will take over those workouts. They'll set up their individual workouts with me so we get a chance to go in there and shoot. We get a chance to go in there and just work on ball-handling and it just gives us time to spend together where we can talk about things other than basketball. I can continue to make sure that they understand that this is a process. We're not worrying and thinking about the results at the time. We are continuing to just take it a day at a time. That allows me to build that relationship with them and sometimes I end up spending more time with them then maybe some of the other players cause I'm normally not in the workouts. It's just the way in which we can spend some time together away from everyone else, to just kind of talk through what they're going through on and off court.”
Hoover was expected to be part of the interior rotation last season, playing alongside Katelyn Young and Ava Learn. While she didn’t get the chance to practice with them during the season, Hoover says she still picked up some tricks from those veterans she plans to use in the future.
“Just two great players overall,” Hoover said. “It’s amazing to learn from them. I've had workouts with Ava. I had a workout with Kate not too long ago. Kind of (working on) little things like footwork, detail, stuff that they just do so well and so repetitively because they've had so much time. They're obviously great leaders, mentors, friends, teammates, everything. I was with Kate the other day, and she's like, ‘Just slow down. You can slow down.’ Then I was walking fast with her, and she's like, ‘See, even right now, you're walking faster than me.’ Just little tips here and there, but overall I learned a ton from them. It's been awesome to be teammates with them.”
From a distance, the only evidence of Hoover’s knee injury is the brace she wears on her right leg. Much like 11 months ago, this is the time of year where you so often see the most individual development from players and watch them take a leap. Hoover was robbed of that leap last year and, brace or no brace, she has big plans for this summer.
“I think I'm strong and I have potential to use it in the right way — in the post, on the wing or wherever they choose to put me,” Hoover said. “Obviously footwork, IQ stuff, I'm working really hard on that right now. I'm really trying to know all the terms and trying to be where everyone else is at, where everyone else's minds are at. I always can improve my shot, ball handling. I think I'm good at rebounding. Just continuing the things I'm good at, getting more comfortable with the system and with my teammates and chemistry and all that.”
“She's physically been ready to go for a while, but her battle will be mental,” Turner said. “Her battle will be that first time she takes a hit; the first time she has to cut really hard. She's been in workouts and she's been in pickup and she's acclimating herself to the speed of the game and all the things that go with it, but expectations are high for her. She has a really high ceiling of how good she could be. She could play multiple positions. She's strong, she's smart, she shoots it well — all the things that we look for in our players. If she stays healthy and that's God's plan for her, than we expect her to make an impact this year.”