It generally isn’t difficult to find superlatives for most national award finalists. When a player reaches a certain level, there are bound to be plenty of things that set them apart.
But what about when there’s almost nothing about their game that doesn’t set them apart? How does one condense singular greatness into one article? That’s the challenge in discussing Drake’s Katie Dinnebier and her historic career – one which feels almost impossible to properly put into perspective.
For starters, there’s her stat line: the nation’s leading assister averaged 23.4 points, 7.2 assists, 4.5 rebounds, 2.5 steals, and 3.3 threes this season on 64% true shooting. NCAA women’s basketball officially added a universal 3-point line in 1986, and no one else has put up those numbers in the nearly four decades since. In fact, you can pick just about any two or three of those stats, and they would put Dinnebier in rarified air.
But for someone who fills the stat sheet to such an unprecedented degree, there is so much more to what makes Dinnebier special. “She’s a dog,” Drake head coach Allison Pohlman tells Her Hoop Stats. “She’s just a competitor.”
Dinnebier’s competitive drive is why she’s improved every season – it’s why her stats are so eye-popping and also why they don’t paint a full picture. At no point during her college career has Dinnebier entered a season the same player she was six months prior. And for the two-time MVC Player of the Year, it’s all predicated on one thing.
“Figuring out what my team needs for me every season has been something that I think I’ve grown upon,” Dinnebier says.
Making her team better is behind everything Dinnebier does. Knowing that her team would need more shooting this season after losing the only other two players to average a three per game from last year’s team is why her focus over the 2024 offseason was on her 3-ball.
It’s why her 3.3 threes per game this year practically matched her averages from the previous three seasons combined. It’s why her pick-and-roll frequency nearly doubled this season after she began her career, as Pohlman says, “coming off more [off-ball] screens … rather than having the ball in her hands all the time.”
Dinnebier approaches every game, every quarter, every single possession with the same mentality she approaches every offseason: “What does my team need?”
“Her mindset fluctuates with exactly the given moment – time, score, and location – and exactly what it is that our group needs to be able to have success,” Pohlman says. “It’s uncanny.”
Perhaps the most uncanny part is how naturally it seems to come. But it wasn’t always that way.
“Sometimes as a freshman and sophomore, you overthink every play … every decision that you’re making, especially as a point guard,” Dinnebier says. “One thing that I’ve developed in my junior and senior years of basketball is you can’t overthink anything. You gotta make a decision on the spot, and you have to be confident in yourself and in your teammates.”
Dinnebier’s opponents, on the other hand, have had to do plenty of thinking when it comes to how to stop her.
“You have other conferences’ Defensive Player of the Year trying to guard her,” Pohlman says. “Their entire game plan is predicated on, ‘How do you stop Katie?’”
For all her accolades, accomplishments, and intangible impacts, Dinnebier hopes to be remembered simply for her passion for the game.
“I just want [fans] to remember someone that loved basketball, that loved representing Drake, and that had a smile on her face every time she stepped on the court,” Dinnebier says.
That’s what Pohlman says she’ll remember the most, too. But don’t mistake Dinnebier’s indomitable joy for a lack of killer instinct.
“What they’re going to remember is probably her smile, first and foremost, [but] they’ll also remember … that ferocious fire,” Pohlman says. “Fourth quarter, when there’s two minutes left and she’s making eye contact with someone and just clapping.”
It’s those crucial moments when Dinnebier finds yet another level. “There’s no moment too big or too small for her,” Pohlman says. “She knows in those games that she’s got to be just a little bit better.”
When the lights are the brightest, Dinnebier is at her best, and she’s got the numbers to prove it. In her 63 clutch time minutes this season, she averaged over a point per minute on 64.6% true shooting, marks unmatched by anyone in the country. And in six games against Quad 1 opponents this season, Dinnebier averaged over 30 points per game – seven points higher than her season average. In back-to-back games against Iowa and Iowa State in November, Dinnebier combined for 79 points on 21-of-33 shooting.
“My mindset just flips a little bit when we’re playing those top-tier opponents,” Dinnebier says. “I always want to play against the best of the best.”
Facing the best, after all, is the only way to become the best, and that’s exactly what Dinnebier has done over the last four seasons. She finishes her career having led Drake to MVC championships in 2023 and 2024 – including a Most Outstanding Player award in the 2024 conference tournament – and with the second most assists in league history.
Dinnebier’s final tally was 780 official assists, but for someone whose career was defined by finding ways to make her teammates better, the unofficial assists were too many to count. And for someone who lived and breathed Drake basketball since the day she set foot on campus, it’s only fitting that she ends her career as a finalist for the highest mid-major honor in the country.