The IUPUI women’s basketball team honors its seniors Friday night, an event shaping up to be extra special for the team’s starting point guard.
Holly Hoopingarner only needs three points to gain membership to her second 1,000-point club. Hoopingarner, a 2016 Greenwood graduate who is the high school’s career scoring leader with 1,614 points, sits at 997 for her collegiate career entering the Jaguars’ regular-season finale against Illinois-Chicago.
Career milestones such as these, while important and fun to one day look back on, don’t speak of the intangibles Hoopingarner, a tireless 5-foot-5 dynamo, bring to the Jaguars.
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“Holly is the best leader I’ve ever had. There are times in practice that I accidentally called her coach,” said IUPUI coach Austin Parkinson, who has a 182-131 record in his 10 seasons, making him the winningest coach in program history. “Some leaders are verbal. Some are by their actions. Holly does both.
“She invests her personal time with all of the players off the court, plays as hard as anyone and is not afraid to say what needs to be said. She’s unique and special.”
Hoopingarner, an exercise science major named to the Horizon League All-Academic team as a junior, aspires to coach at the college level following her graduation in May. She will attend the WBCA’s “So You Want To Be A Coach” program at the NCAA Women’s Final Four in New Orleans in early April.
It’s an opportunity for Hoopingarner to network and to learn, the preferred scenario being that a college brings her in as an assistant coach or graduate assistant for the 2020-21 women’s basketball season.
As a point guard, Hoopingarner possesses the ability to see things before they happen on the court. Not surprisingly, she even found a way to tie her major into her desire to one day be in charge of her own basketball program.
“I want to be a coach, but I chose exercise science as a major because I thought it would be beneficial on how to treat my athletes,” said Hoopingarner, whose 298 career assists have her on the verge of breaking into the school’s top 10 in that category.
She’s also one of IUPUI’s most dependable free throw shooters, having led the team in percentage the past two years. She’s at 81.1 percent (193 of 238) for her career.
The Jaguars are 86-39 in Hoopingarner’s four seasons and in excellent position to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the first time. On March 9-10, the Horizon League tournament comes to Indiana Farmers Coliseum, which happens to be IUPUI’s home venue.
Moreover, by winning the league’s regular-season title, the Jaguars are the top seed. The Horizon League tournament was played in Detroit the past two seasons.
“It’s awesome. We’re all very excited about it. It’s going to be special,” Hoopingarner said. “My time at IUPUI has been amazing. I love the culture coach P has made here. They really care about you here as a person and not just a basketball player.”
