Purdue basketball trio celebrates senior night, but careers 'far from over'
WEST LAFAYETTE − This was their night and the first 3:11 were a clear indication.
Purdue led Penn State 10-0.
Rickie Woltman won the tip and Jeanae Terry whipped a pass to a cutting Lasha Petree for an easy layup.
Two Cassidy Hardin 3-pointers later and a Woltman layup and the three players Purdue would recognize on senior night accounted for a 10-0 run on the Boilermakers' way to an 86-62 win at Mackey Arena.
Hardin, Woltman and Petree all have their own stories for how they've come together to lead a Purdue team hopeful of its first NCAA tournament appearance in six years.
"Those three mean a lot and I'm hoping they know we're far from over," Purdue coach Katie Gearlds said Wednesday night.
Petree played college basketball at three schools before she found one that felt like home, coming to West Lafayette for her final season of eligibility after stops at Bradley and Rutgers.
Woltman, or Slick Rick as they call her, rarely saw the floor in her first two seasons, scoring 30 points in 32 games as a freshman and sophomore. Last season, she started 22 of the 32 games she played.
Hardin was ready to move on to the next phase of her life after graduating from Purdue a year ago, already accepted to Indiana University's medical school. Gearlds sold the sharpshooting guard on coming back for one more run.
"Who defers med school to come back and play for a coach they've played for for one year," Gearlds said.
Cassidy Hardin does.
After all, she was the intermediary when things could have gone off the rails when last season began and Gearlds was thrust into the head coaching role to succeed Sharon Versyp.
"Obviously it was an abrupt switch when everything went down the way that it did, so we had a long talk about it," Hardin said. "Coach brought us all together. She definitely came to me and said I need you to be the link between coaches and players when it comes to jelling and getting everyone on the same page.
"It was kind of chaotic at the beginning. Nobody really knew what was going on. Complete philosophy change that we had to get used to. It went about as seamless as it possibly could go. Not that it was perfect by any means but I think she settled into the role pretty well."
Petree poured in 23 points Wednesday night and Hardin had 11 in a game where Terry was all-world with nine points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and eight steals.
And while Terry was one point and two steals away from doing something no Purdue women's basketball player has ever done, this night was about Petree, Hardin and Woltman, who in postgame speeches to those in the crowd of 3,403 who stuck around in Mackey Arena late Wednesday all shed tears in some form when sharing what Purdue University and it's women's basketball program meant to them.
Petree began, kind of going on the fly, per usual.
Because she'd been at two schools already and knew college basketball was affording her one season to finish on a high note, Petree did her due diligence when choosing where she'd spend her final season.
"I'm not going to say it wasn't what I wanted, but I feel like it was what I needed," Petree said of Purdue. "Coach Katie, she said all the right things in the recruiting process and then backed it up when I got here, too. She was exactly who she told me she was going to be. I don't regret that decision at all."
Woltman promised to keep her speech short and sweet, then rambled on for minutes because, well, she's been through four years that included a coaching change that provided her someone leading the program who finally believed in her. And you can't sum that up in short and sweet.
As Woltman put it afterwards, Purdue has been everything she wanted and more. But Gearlds becoming head coach put it over the top. And she bought in to whatever Gearlds needed her to do.
After starting as a junior, Woltman took a back seat this season so transfer Caitlyn Harper could absorb most of the minutes and Woltman could provide a changeup to the low-post scoring threat.
Who, after starting as a junior, agrees to take a lesser role as a senior?
Rickie Woltman does.
"It was very easy to buy into what KG was talking about and coaching and preaching to us in practice," Woltman said. "She's smart. She knows a lot about basketball. She knows what she is talking about and that's something very obvious to see in practice from day one so that made it naturally easy for us to buy in."
Hardin, who came back for a fifth year, deferring her start to medical school, had a lot to say.
So much, in fact, she wrote out a speech but broke down multiple times to the point she could barely get to the end, a tale of injuries, a lost postseason opportunity due to COVID and relationships formed.
The trio will never play in Mackey Arena again, barring a home WNIT game, which would be a disappointment considering the reason all three − Hardin in 2018, Woltman in 2019 and Petree in 2022 − wanted to be Boilermakers was to get a once prestigious program back into the NCAA tournament.
After putting up 57 points in the first half on the way to running Penn State out of Mackey Arena Wednesday, they're one stop closer.
Purdue is 18-8 with one regular-season game remaining, currently projected to make the field.
Petree put it into perspective Wednesday night.
Three schools, 2,000-plus career points and one final chapter that hopefully has a storybook ending.
"Who hits 2,000 points?" she asked afterwards.
Lasha Petree does, but in doing so, she felt for the first time that the cap to college basketball was near.
Wednesday seemed like the end in some ways. Senior night celebrations and a Mackey Arena sendoff.
Yeah, it got to the three of them being recognized.
But Petree had an epiphany after.
"We have a long way to go, too," she said. "We're not done and I got excited about that."
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue trio celebrates senior night, but careers 'far from over'
