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An Indiana Hoosier hero is staying home.
With the seventh overall pick in Monday night's 2023 WNBA Draft, the Indiana Fever selected Indiana guard Grace Berger. Berger – the all-time winningest player in Indiana women's basketball history – joins South Carolina's Aliyah Boston as the Fever's first round picks in this year's draft.
Throughout her five-year career in Bloomington, Berger finished seventh all-time in program scoring and second all-time in total assists. In her senior season, Berger was named to the All-Big Ten First Team, and was an honorable mention for the USBWA and Associated Press, All-American teams.
Berger's senior season was also one that will reserve its own spot in IU women's basketball's pantheon as a team – the program's first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the end of a 40-year drought with their return to the title of Big Ten regular season champions, and won 28 games as a whole. Alongside consensus All-American Mackenzie Holmes, head coach Teri Moren also was named the AP's National Coach of the Year.
Berger was a part of the instrumental change in leading the Indiana women's program to where it is now: powerhouse status. Her first games in cream & crimson featured scarce crowds inside the usually raucous Assembly Hall.
Five years later, she's a main factor into Indiana's first-ever sellout of a women's basketball game.
"We're not sitting here where we are today. We weren't sitting here a year ago, probably three years out without Grace Berger on this roster," Moren said after the season's final loss, a heartbreaking loss at the buzzer to No. 9 Miami. "Just so grateful that, as I said, that she decided to become an Indiana Hoosier five years ago when she had a lot of different options. She chose us."
Berger was one of the very best to ever put on an Indiana uniform, following in the footsteps of Tyra Buss, Ali Patberg and so many other Hoosier greats who have come before her. Berger's role in the turnaround of Indiana's program serves as one of the most influential in memory.
Now, as she heard her name called Monday night, the start to her professional career won't be anything more than a short drive from her first forever home. The first place her midrange jumper became automatic, where she won the hearts of Hoosier fans all over and engaged an entire university, community and city to fall in love with her team.
She's always an Indiana Hoosier. Now, she's an Indiana Fever.
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