Last year was one of the best for the Purdue Boilermakers, as the team went all the way to the finals of the NCAA championships. But the team also lost five seniors to graduation, including three starters.

At the start of this year, Coach Kristy Curry said that for the team to return to the top ranks, some players will have to take on new leadership roles.

And that's exactly what Mary Jo Noon has done. After three years battling injuries, Noon is now the starting center for Purdue in what is turning out to be a very promising season (the Boilermakers are currently ranked 6th in the Gballmag.com poll). She is averaging 14.3 points per game, good for second on the team, while shooting 51 percent from the floor.

A graduate of Jeffersonville High School in Indiana, in this interview, Noon talks about moving into a leadership role, overcoming injuries, and this year's Boilermaker team.

Gball: After red-shirting your first year, you got some good playing time two years ago, then last year you tore your ACL. What was it like sitting out so much of your first three years?
Noon: My first year coming in as a freshman, I had stress fractures in three bones of my foot and I had to sit out. That was a great year for us because we won the national championship. And then, last year, when I tore my ACL, we went to the Final Four. I just wanted to be healthy! I'd worked so hard and just wanted to be a part of the team and be able to play in the Final Four. But I was still able to practice and travel with the team, even my redshirt year.

This year, you're playing great. You've been scoring well‹in your last game, against Indiana, you scored 20 points. Is that something that you've had to work hard on after sitting out so much?
Yeah. That's one thing I try to focus on, consistency. Not just on the offense but on the defense as well. You want to have a good game day in and day out. I struggled a bit coming into the season, just from not playing a lot, but then I was able to get into the flow of the game and accept my role as a starter.

How do you work on that, to get that kind of consistency?
We have some great practice players. They do the things they need to do to make me better, whether that's post moves or working on me on defense. We work hard to recreate game conditions.

And, how did you handle it psychologically, going from a practice player and being injured to being a starter?
I think the main thing for me was that I needed some experience. The preseason helped me out a lot. I worked hard at practice and we played some great teams. You always want practice to be harder than games. You want to work hard in practice and do the things you need to do and then make sure all that transfers over to the game. I worked really hard over the summer, trying to improve, in particular, on defense and rebounds. I also worked on learning how to be the go-to player and getting the experience of having people double and triple team me.

When you started practicing for this season, did Coach Curry look to you to be a leader or was that something you felt you had to prove to her?
I think it was a little of both. I think she had faith in me to be a leader but I also had to have the confidence in myself. I had to build that confidence up. I worked hard to do that and now it's there.

Coach Curry believes in all her players, but with me, I don't know that I had the confidence in myself, and so I had to build that in the preseason. And she was always on the side saying, "You're so much better. Keep your head up and don't get down on yourself so much." Having her right there saying that every day at practice, it builds your confidence up. She's great at that.

Coming off the ACL tear, you also had to build your confidence up physically. How did that go?
I tore my ACL in January and I was playing in April and May, and then it was just something that I had to work hard on in the summertime to get my strength back. Playing in the Big Ten, it's a physical game out there. I knew I needed to get back to where I was or even better and I've done that. I like to bang with the best of them!

Can this year's team make it to the Final Four?
We still have a long way to go, we have a lot of things we can work on, but I think that this team's really focused and can get there again. A couple of things we need to control are defense and rebounding. If we continue to work on those two things, we could go a long way in the tournament. It's a great team. Everyone is playing good for us. Our bench is playing good. And we just need to keep it up.

Purdue's also academically challenging. How have you been able to balance both the athletics and academics?
Coming here as a freshman you learn a lot about time management. You have to manage your time with school and basketball. And those two can't just be your life either. You have to have time for yourself and your friends and your family, too. You have to really plan your day, every single day. Now that I've been at it for a couple of years I can manage all those things in a single day. I think all our players do a great job of balancing those things.

I saw that you also played volleyball and were a regional champion shot-putter in high school, but you've chosen to pursue basketball. How'd you get started in that and why have you chosen to focus on it?
Actually, I wasn't really into basketball that much my freshman and sophomore years. But the summer after my sophomore year I played with a team out of Indianapolis called Indiana's Finest, and we won the national championship that year. I played AAU basketball for the next three years and I got the feeling that this is what I wanted to do in college. That really got me into it.

Where do you want your basketball career to lead, ideally?
I hope to finish out these next couple of years with winning seasons, and then hopefully play in the WNBA. I hope to keep playing after my college days, but if that's not possible, I'm looking into going into pharmaceutical sales. Playing in the WNBA is my dream. As little girls growing up you just want to play college basketball and then be one of the fortunate ones to be able to play in the pros.

Interview conducted by Gball Editor Guillermo Metz.


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