The shot was probably one just like IU Indianapolis’s Katie Davidson has made in games hundreds of times over the span of her life. A 15-footer in the second quarter against Milwaukee, the current last-place team in the Horizon League.
Davidson had snuck into the short corner against a Panthers 1-3-1 zone that sometimes collapsed into a 2-3 and had the home team uncomfortable all night long. Davidson’s mid-ranger that has all but gone out of style in today’s game went in.
Which was hardly surprising on a night when Davidson led all scorers with 24 on 7 for 11 shooting from the field and 8-for-8 from the free throw line, while also adding 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals.
None of it was enough, as Milwaukee would head home with a 66-62 victory, their second Horizon League win of the season.
If Davidson’s effort wasn’t quite enough for her team to get the win, her shot from the corner was notable for other reasons. It allowed her to surpass 1,000 points in her college playing career.
“It took a long time to get here,” Davidson said after the game.
A long time, indeed. Her road has been a winding one.
Close to 5 years ago, Davidson scored 10 points for basketball power Lawrence North, as they beat Northwestern, 59-56, to win the 4A Indiana state championship. Just a few weeks later, the Indiana High School Athletic Association was cancelling the remainder of the boys’ tournament because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Davidson initially left the state to continue her playing career, and her first season at Miami of Ohio–which included cancellations of games against Purdue and Wisconsin because of continued problems with the virus–showed just how much promise she possessed as a player. Her team struggled, but Davidson started 24 games as a freshmen, playing almost 29 minutes a night while averaging nearly 12 points a game and shooting just under 34% from 3-point range.
Something changed during her sophomore season, though, and it wasn’t the head coach. Davidson still started most of the time, but her minutes went down significantly. She scored less, and her shooting percentage dipped.
Use of the transfer portal has become such a norm in collegiate sports that people barely give it a second thought if a player is at her second or even third institution. But Davidson didn’t just leave Miami after the 2021-2022 season, she got out of basketball all together.
“There were a lot of other factors that (went into the time off),” she explained. “…I was going through a lot…I don’t really want to touch on that too much.”
No matter what kept Davidson out of basketball for the 2022-2023 season, she was ready to play again by the time she was on the IU Indy roster a year later. Her minutes topped her freshman season at Miami, and her scoring and field goal percentage were better, too. She started every game she played in.
“This is my hometown,” Davidson said. “And just being from Indy, obviously that’s where my support system was. And for what I was going through, I feel like I needed to come home, and I feel like I made the right decision. It was life-changing for me.”
Even so, she has had more adversity to work her way through during her senior season. Only 8 minutes into IU Indy’s second game of the season at Ball State, Davidson hurt her right (and shooting) wrist. Seriously enough that she wouldn’t play another game for almost 2 months.
“I was out there with my cast on, just doing left-handed workouts,” she said about how she handled that stretch of the season. “I was running and working out, like I didn’t sit down, and I think that’s what really helped me.”
Davidson is averaging nearly 20 points a game, the best of her career, since her wrist healed.
