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34 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATE VOLUME 26, ISSUE 3 12-point lead. It had been only three 51 seconds ear- lier. Against Dayton seven days earlier, Wilson again was the catalyst. Trailing by four early in the fourth, she hit a three-pointer followed by a traditional three- point play, when she danced through the lane then popped in a short floater while being fouled. Then, she forced a turnover on a midcourt steal, finding Dominique McBryde for a layup that also resulted in a three-point play. The 9-0 run turned Purdue's defi- cit into a lead in a game it held on to win, breaking a two-game losing streak. Despite battling early foul trouble in the Louisville game Nov. 29, she hit a free throw and had a steal in the closing seconds as Purdue beat the No. 22 Cardi- nals. Even in the overtime loss to 13th-ranked Stanford the next day, Wilson gave the Boilermakers a chance. In the 10-minute span of the third quarter, after Pur- due trailed 26-21 at the half and was in danger of see- ing the game slip away, Wilson scored 12, including a couple three-pointers, putting the Boilermakers up a point to start the fourth. "I think every team has that one player that they look to," sophomore Bree Horrocks said. "For us, we just have complete trust in her and we all believe in her to the fullest extent. We all need to play our part and we all need to do our role, but she is going to take us to the end. "We all have the fight, but I've never seen the fight like she has." Through the season's first 10 games, Wilson av- eraged 15.1 points per game, while shooting 45 per- cent from the floor, including nearly 47 percent from three-point range. She also averaged 5.5 assists per game, with a near 3-to-1 assist to turnover ratio, and 3.9 rebounds and 2.3 steals. "I'm at my peak, I would say," said Wilson, who at the time was the only player in the country averaging more than 15 points, five assists and two steals per game and shooting at least 45 percent from three. "Maybe last year, I would shoot and miss a few, then shy away from it and set other people up. But I think at this point, I have nothing else to lose, this is my last year, why wouldn't I keep shooting? Or try to knock down that shot? That's my mindset; I'm going into every game like it's the national championship, (I) don't care who we're playing, and I think when you do that, you play at another level. You don't want to lose." Wilson's put in plenty of work to get to this point. She did so last summer too, but the injury — and the losing — undid all of it. This last offseason, she wanted to get back in the gym, not only to work on her shot but to get in the best condition possible. And she's gotten there. Wilson's numbers in the second half of games might tell the story. In the seven games before finals week in mid-December, she averaged 10.9 points in the second half, while shooting 59 percent from both the field and three-point range. In her 172 sec- ond-half minutes in the first 10 games, she had only eight turnovers and 27 assists. "I'm in great shape and that is part of it," Wilson said. "When you're in great shape, you can play the whole 40 minutes and not get tired and still do the things that you did in the first quarter just as well as in the fourth. "It has to do with being in shape and wanting it, telling myself, 'I'm not tired. We're going to win this game.' And instilling that in my teammates, too." LEADING THE WAY The Boilermakers were fractured last season, with groups of players huddling separately at times to try to solve some of their issues. Wilson owns that. "We all have the fight, but I've never seen the fight like she has." — Bree Horrocks