Quincey Noonan has a confession.
The Legacy point guard from a basketball-rich family will be directing traffic and, if all goes well, scoring big for the Lightning tonight against Monarch in the Class 5A final four at the CU Events Center.
But while the University of Denver-bound senior exudes the aura of steadiness and is characterized by her unflappability, she admits it hasn’t always been that way.
“It’s a lot different coming into it this time, because as a freshman I was scared out of my mind,” Noonan said.
Noonan was wide-eyed in Legacy’s last trip to Boulder to culminate the 2006-07 season, in which the Melissa Jones-led Lightning advanced to the championship game but lost to Highlands Ranch. Back then, it was all about Jones, the consensus player of the year who now plays at No. 16 Baylor (although a leg injury has kept her out of the lineup since January).
It might not be all about Noonan now, as it was for Jones then, but Noonan’s basketball life has evolved in many ways since that trip. Her father, Jim, retired after 28 seasons of coaching after the 2007-08 season, including a final stint as the Legacy boys coach. Her brother, Trevor (2 years older), morphed into one of the state’s finest players and signed at Air Force. Trevor transferred to DU this season and is redshirting, meaning the Pioneers will have the Noonan brother-sister combo next season.
Quincey also endured what could have been a career-path-altering injury to her shooting wrist last summer and missed the club season. She had been considering Gonzaga, Stanford, Boston College, Kansas and Kansas State prior to choosing DU.
“With my wrist surgery last year, schools lost a little bit of interest in me, which is totally understandable,” Noonan said. “But DU was definitely very optimistic about my recovery, and that was definitely a huge thing. . . . My brother going there is just an added benefit.”
Noonan also has evolved into one of the state’s finest point guards after being a small forward/shooting guard type for much of her high school career. Sure, she averaged 12.9 points as a freshman and 10.7 now, but it hardly qualifies as a regression, considering she now runs the show for a 25-1 squad that has several capable scorers — mainly Carli Moreland and Kailey Edwards — to dish the ball to.
“I think Quincey is truly a team player,” Lightning coach Jamie Carey said. “I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true. She’s incredibly unselfish, and she has a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio, which is unbelievable for a high school kid.”
Carey undoubtedly is qualified to evaluate point guards, considering she was one of the finest in state history. She was named Gatorade national player of the year after her senior season at Horizon in 1999 before playing college ball at Stanford and Texas. She played four seasons in the WNBA with the Connecticut Sun and took over at Legacy last season.
While Noonan doesn’t boast the Carey-like exorbitant scoring average, the coach claims: “Just like almost any great point guard, it’s all the things that don’t show up on the stat sheet that make her special.”
And with the point guard mind-set, the days of Noonan being scared out of her mind are long gone.
“I’m still a little nervous this year, but I’m definitely looking forward to it,” Noonan said. “I know any of these games can be my last game, so I kind of have that mind-set that it’s all or nothing right now.”
