2001-02 Women's Basketball Roster
Kate Fagan
- Position:
- Guard
- Height:
- 5-9
- Class:
- Sophomore
- Hometown:
- Schenectady, N.Y.
- High School:
- Niskayuna
Barry on Fagan: “With Kate, there’s no question she’s going to hit the outside shot. She’s one of our most consistent players. I think her experience with the Big 12 All Stars will help her maturity, and I think that experience opened her eyes a little bit to some of the competitors in the Big 12.”
This Season: Coming off her most productive campaign yet, Fagan is one of CU’s three returning starters this season. She led the Big 12 in three pointers made per game last season, and opponents can expect more of the same from the fifth-year senior. After spending the summer working on shooting off the dribble, Fagan’s new offensive weapons will make her an even more effective threat.
2002-03 (Junior): Colorado’s best three-point shooter, by connecting on a conference best 70 shots from behind the arc during the 2002-03 season, 31 more than she hit the previous year, helping the Buffaloes to the third-best three-point shooting percentage in the Big 12. Fagan made five or more threes in five games and had 18 games where she finished with multiple three-pointers. After coming off the bench her freshman and sophomore seasons to give teammate Jenny Roulier a break, Fagan found herself in the starting role this season and didn’t waste anytime making an impact. She scored 17 points in the first game of the season against Rice and followed that by scoring in double figures in nine of the next 10 games, including a career high 22 points against Syracuse in an overtime game in her home state of New York on New Year’s Eve. She tied that career high just five games later at Kansas when she hit seven of her 11 shots and went 6 of 8 from three-point range while also collecting a career high seven rebounds. Fagan started off the NCAA Tournament helping Colorado defeat Brigham Young in Boulder by hitting six treys and scoring 21 points, and advance to the next round against North Carolina where she put up 16 points, 15 of which came by three-pointers. She didn’t just excel behind the three-point line, but also behind the free throw line where she only missed three times in 65 attempts. She led the team in scoring six times and was Colorado’s second leading scorer averaging 10.9 points a game while topping the charts in three point attempts and three pointers made. She is currently fifth on Colorado’s career charts for three-pointers made with 118 surpassing Erin Carson, La Shena Graham, Annan Wilson and Alexis Felts. She needs 32 threes to pass Amy Palmer for fourth. She set the Big 12 record for consecutive free throws made with 44. Fagan kept an online diary called “The Fagan Files” on the Colorado athletic website, and was also named First Team Academic Big 12 for her third year in a row for her role in the classroom. She graduated from CU in May of 2003.
2001-02 (Sophomore): A sharpshooter, and one of the Big 12’s biggest threats from beyond the arc, Fagan shared the conference’s highest 3-point field goal percentage (.476) with Kansas State’s Kristin Rethman during the 2001-2002 campaign. Of the 172 points she scored throughout the season, 117 of them were three pointers. Fagan knocked down four three’s on four different occasions including going 4 of 5 from downtown in just 12 minutes in Colorado’s first round NCAA tournament victory over Southern in Boulder on March 15. A key backup to her teammates Jenny Roulier and Mandy Nightingale, she came off the bench to have a breakout game against Bowling Green during the Coors Classic where she set 10 new career highs including 16 points?which she later tied against Kansas?six rebounds, seven assists and four steals. After receiving valuable playing time in the first half against Air Force, Fagan had to leave the game in the second half when a collision with another player caused her a broken nose. Unfortunately for UCLA, she was back on the court just three days later donning a plastic face mask to protect her injury and went 2 for 2 from 3-point land and collected four steals. Fagan received the first start of her career in front of a nationally televised audience against No. 21 Louisiana State on Dec. 29 and responded by dishing out five assists and scoring six points en route to a 86-65 win. In perhaps her most impressive game of the season, if not her career, Fagan dropped 13 points on then No. 14 Iowa State shooting an immaculate 5 for 5 from the field, including three treys, to help Colorado upset the Cyclones in Boulder. Almost all of Fagan’s numbers improved since her freshman season including points per game (5.4) and minutes per game (14.5) and she earned First Team Academic All-Big 12 for the second straight year.
2000-01 (Redshirt Freshman): Fagan rebounded from the stress fractures of her freshman year to play a key bench role as a redshirt freshman. She backed up CU’s starting backcourt of Jenny Roulier and Mandy Nightingale, mostly coming off the bench in a defensive role as well as when the Buffs were looking for three point shooting. Fagan saw action in 20 games, averaging 2.6 points per game while shooting 32.7 percent from the floor. Had a career high 10 points on .500 shooting in Colorado’s win over Howard in the first round of the Coors Classic in just 13 minutes of gametime. Was crucial off the bench in the win over Ok-State, coming in to relieve starters Nightingale and Roulier, scoring seven points. Had a career-high three rebounds against Siena in the first round of the NCAA tournament. She had career best marks in assists (eight), steals (seven) and total points (51). Earned First Team Academic All-Big 12 honors, the first of her career.
1999-2000 (Freshman): Fagan was diagnosed with a stress fracture in the navicular bone in her foot on October 15, the day before the first practice of the season. After a month of rest did not heal the fracture, a decision was made by Coach Barry and the medical staff for Fagan to undergo surgery to fixate the fracture with a screw. Surgery was performed on December 17. Prior to her redshirt she played in five games, scoring 15 total points averaging three points per game. Fagan was a perfect 6 for 6 from the free throw line and hit one three pointer in her 47 minutes of gametime.
High School: While averaging 20.6 points a game during her senior year, Fagan became Niskayuna’s all-time leading scorer with 1,439 points, bettering the previous mark by a point. A six-year varsity starter for head coach Colleen Clayton, as an eighth grader she was pegged by Joe Smith of the Women’s Basketball News Service and Street & Smith’s as a “Future” All-American. As a freshman she was a Suburban Council First Team All-Star, an honor she repeated the next three seasons while leading the league in scoring her sophomore through senior campaigns. As a sophomore during the 1996-97 season, Fagan was a New York State Class A Section II All-Tournament Team member and as a sophomore, junior and senior was a News 13 Capital Region All-Star, a New York All-State selection and a member of The Times Union and The Gazette All-Area Second-Team member and was a Blue Star East All-Star. As a junior Niskayuna went 10-11 and Fagan, a first year captain, averaged 18.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 3.1 steals. Following her junior and senior campaigns she was a USA Today Honorable Mention All-American and was a New York State Fair All-Star (one of top 20 players in New York State). Her senior year, Niskayuna went 15-6/11-2 and Fagan was named the Suburban Council Most Valuable Player after leading her team to the Gold Division Championship and earned the same accolades in the Capital District All-Star Game. After leading the team and the league in scoring (20.6 ppg), the second best scoring effort in Section II, she earned a fifth-team All-East selection in All-Stater Magazine a first-team All-Area pick by the Times Union and was chosen Daily Gazette Player of the Year. She also averaged 9.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.1 steals a game and connected on 46 straight from the charity stripe. Fagan was also a member of Niskayuna’s cross country team during the 1996 and ’97 seasons.
