But like old saying goes, you can’t judge this book by its cover.
It’s what you don’t see with Hutchison that truly defines her.
“I’ve got a big chip on my shoulder,” she said after Wright State topped Milwaukee ,70-60, in a Horizon League Tournament quarterfinal game Thursday evening at the Nutter Center.
“Your shoulders are pretty small, so the chip can’t be that big,” Hutchson was teased in the postgame session with the press.
She shook her head as she cupped her hands and lifted them up to her left shoulder as if she were holding something cantaloupe size:
“It’s huge!”
It’s something she admitted she’s drawn on any time she’s had to face the slights, misconceptions and the toughest circumstances that have come into her life.
That chip has fueled her again and again, whether it was:
- Dealing with two older brothers whom she said, “picked on me” and made her develop an “I just hate to lose at anything” mentality.
- Recovering from a torn ACL as a sophomore at Centerville High – a basketball injury that likely derailed any NCAA Division I recruiting consideration she may have gotten – and proving she could still play the game at a high level, which she did. She was the team captain as a senior and guided the Elks to a 25-3 mark.
- Coming back home and joining the WSU team this season – after a stellar career at Division II Malone University – and showing she not only could play at the D-I level but could replicate that success she’d had at a lower level the past four years.
And that’s just what happened this season when she won All-Horizon League first team honors and now leads the league in scoring with a 19.2 ppg average.
Thursday night, it was Hutchison’s aggressive play – driving into the Milwaukee zone for tough-angled lay-ups or last-second dishes – that helped the Raiders come back in a game that they led for less than 10 ½ minutes.
Hutchison had a game-high 23 points, while adding seven rebounds, four assists and two steals. Layne Ferrell added 17 points, Cara VanKempen had 11 and Rachel Loobie had 10 rebounds, nine points and three blocked shots.
With Thursday’s output, Hutchison topped the 2,000 points milestone in her career. She now has 2,002, with 615 coming this season and 1,387 amassed at Malone.
“Coach told us the other day her stats are even better now than they were at DII,” said Ferrell. “Moving up didn’t faze her at all.”
And that’s a big reason No. 4 seeded WSU – now 18-14 going into next Monday’s tournament semifinal against top seeded, 28-4 Cleveland State at Indiana Farmers Coliseum – has had the kind of success no one outside of the Raiders inner circle thought it would this season.
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Overachievers
The WSU women have been over-achievers this season; while the Raiders’ men – whose 99-97 collapse in overtime against Northern Kentucky in a tournament quarterfinal at the Nutter Center Thursday night – ended their season underachieving.
The WSU women – thanks to a decimated roster —were 4-23 in coach Kari Hoffman’s first season two years ago and then went 8-24 last season.
Hoffman added four transfers this year – three with local ties – and the team gelled like few imagined. In a preseason poll of league coaches, sports information directors and media, they were picked to finish seventh in the league and instead ended up fourth.
" I’m just really proud of their bravery; their ability to show up and work hard every day and the way they trusted each other,” Hoffman said.
The WSU men – who led Northern Kentucky by 17 late in the first half and had a three-point lead with 4.4 seconds left and NKU shooting two free throws – had their season end because they could neither corral NKU star Marques Warrick, who finished with 35 points, nor fend off freshman guard Randall Pettus II for a final rebound and putback on Trey Robinson’s missed free throw in those final seconds.
Listed as 6-foot-3, Pettus is more like 6-1 and he grabbed the final carom away from 6-6 Tanner Holden and in front of 6-9 A.J, Brain and managed a twisting score to send the game to overtime.
As for Warrick, he also had scored 39 against WSU five days earlier.
That’s 74 points in two games!
The loss ended the magnificent WSU careers of Holden and Trey Calvin, a pair of fifth year players who tallied over 4,000 points between them.
“The worst part about this is there’s no next year; there’s no running it back,” said redshirt sophomore Brandon Noel. “I love the guys who are leaving. This is just terrible.
“Overall, we probably underachieved, honestly.” Braun agreed: “It sucks. We had a lot of potential, but I feel like we didn’t get there. We had a whole bunch of talent, a whole bunch of experienced guys. We had all the pieces, but we just didn’t put it together.”
The WSU women were just the opposite.
“This team has revitalized the program,” Hoffman said.
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
‘I had to prove that I belonged’
Tom Hutchison said while his daughter was at Malone, she “saw a lot of girls she’d played against in high school who were playing D-I now and she’d held her own against them. So she wasn’t that intimidated this year.”
When pressed, Alexis admitted that: “The bottom line, I believe, is that depending on the player — whether they’re NAIA, Division III, Division II, or Division I — if they can ‘play,’ they can play at the highest level.”
She said WSU was the perfect fit for her.
It enabled her to come back home and play in front of friends and family – “I wanted to make them proud,” she said as her voice broke – and she also wanted to prove she was a Division I caliber player.
To help do that, she had to cultivate that chip any way she could:
“I had to prove that I belonged.”
She did that but is hesitant to admit it:
“I don’t like saying that out loud because that could make me lose that edge. And I need that chip. So, I’ve got to keep it there however I can.”
And Thursday night her dad made reference to another way she could do just that:
“When she reached the 1,500 point mark this season they gave her a plaque. That was nice, except they had her name spelled wrong. It said ‘Hutchinson.’
“So tonight, she topped 2,000. If they do another plaque, maybe this one will have her name right.”
Until then, his daughter can stare at the misspell.
She can turn it into another slight.
It will help keep that chip huge.
About the Author