By Wheat Hotchkiss

For any player, being drafted to the WNBA is a dream come true. But for Grace Berger, who grew up driving from her Louisville home to watch Fever games as a kid and starred at Indiana University for five seasons, being drafted by the Indiana Fever has made the last week extra special for her.

“It’s right where I want to be,” Berger said Tuesday morning at her introductory press conference at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Berger and her family would make the two-hour drive north to the Fieldhouse every summer in her childhood to watch the Fever. She grew up idolizing the tough-nosed play of Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas, mimicking their games in the driveway. At one game when she was seven years old, Berger got picked out of the crowd to go back to the Fever locker room and high-five the players as they ran out onto the court.

“I just was like in disbelief,” Berger recalled. “I thought everyone was super tall and I was like, ‘Gosh, I could never play with these girls.’

“So to kind of fast-forward and actually be in this position, it’s really a full-circle moment for me and super special.”

Berger arrived in Indianapolis on Monday, one week after the Fever took her with the seventh overall pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft. She toured Gainbridge Fieldhouse and met with the Fever staff, including general manager Lin Dunn and head coach Christie Sides. She even got in a workout, getting on the court for some individual work with the coaching staff. After meeting with the media on Tuesday morning, she was scheduled to meet up with some of her new teammates for a group workout in the afternoon.

As the Fever rolled out the red carpet for her, Berger couldn’t help but think of her family, those trips to watch Fever games as a kid, and what all of this means to her parents.

“I think you saw it in my mom’s reaction (on draft night),” Berger said. “I know the ESPN cameras got her crying after I got drafted and that’s kind of been the whole feeling all around the family. Obviously staying close to home was huge for them. They’ve never missed a game in college. So I think that will be really special for them and my extended family as well.”

On draft night, Dunn made it clear that while it makes for a great story that Berger starred at IU and grew up coming to Fever games, Indiana drafted her because of what she can do on the court.

Over five years with the Hoosiers, Berger scored 1,841 points, fourth-most in program history, and won a school-record 118 games, leading Indiana to its first ever number-one seed in the NCAA Tournament in 2023. She was a four-time All-Big Ten first team selection and an honorable mention All-American.

A 6-foot guard capable of playing three positions, Berger averaged 16.2 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in 2021-22, then slid over to handle more point guard duties in her final season in Bloomington, averaging 12.9 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 5.8 assists. She finished her career with 573 assists, second-most in school history.

Dubbed the “Midrange Queen” for her knack to score from that area of the floor, Berger is an efficient scorer and converted 45.2 percent of her shots over her college career, including a career-best 48.4 percent last season. She didn’t take a high volume of 3-point attempts in college, but hopes to expand that area of her game at the next level.

Berger said she first realized that she was good enough to play in the WNBA in the summer of 2021, when USA Basketball selected her to be a part of the roster for the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup. Berger helped lead the Americans to a gold medal, got to learned from national team head coach Dawn Staley, and played alongside some of the best college players in the country.

Two players from that team are now her teammates once again with the Fever – second-year guard Destanni Henderson and fellow rookie Aliyah Boston, who the Fever selected with the first number-one pick in franchise history in last week’s draft.

Berger and Boston reunited last week at the draft and were excited to learn that they will be teammates as they start their professional careers. On Tuesday, Berger raved about Boston, both as a player and a person, from their time together with Team USA.

“I think she makes everyone around her better and I think that’s somewhat rare, especially at the collegiate level for a post player,” Berger said. “I remember just being in awe of her ability to set up screens in transition, catch any pass I throw at her, make passes out of a double-team in the post just to make people around her better.”

Berger and Boston join a Fever roster that is loaded with young talent. Five draft picks from 2022 made Indiana’s roster last year (Henderson, WNBA All-Rookie selections NaLyssa Smith and Queen Egbo, and Emily Engstler and Lexie Hull) and they’ll be joined in training camp – which starts on April 30 – by five more rookies, including Boston, Berger, and Ohio State sharpshooter Taylor Mikesell, who Indiana took with the first pick in the second round.

Though it’s a young Fever roster, Indiana has a pair of veteran guards in Kelsey Mitchell and Erica Wheeler. Mitchell ranked sixth in the WNBA in scoring last year in her fifth season, averaging a career-best 18.4 points per game. The 31-year-old Wheeler returned the Fever in free agency this offseason after originally playing in Indiana from 2016-19 and becoming the first undrafted player to be named All-Star Game MVP in 2019.

Mitchell and Wheeler should be valuable mentors for Berger, who said her plan was to “attach myself to” the veteran guards in training camp.

“I’m super excited to just be a sponge to them and kind of pick their brains and learn from them and model my game after them,” Berger said.

Berger graduated from Indiana in 2021 with a degree in sports marketing and management and has been taking graduate-level courses for the past two years. She is taking one online class this semester and will have to juggle finishing that course while simultaneously embarking on her professional career.

No player in Indiana history has been drafted higher than Berger. Hoosiers head coach Teri Moren was there in New York alongside Berger for the draft and she has felt the love from the Indiana faithful over the past week.

“It’s been unbelievable,” Berger said. “I don’t think it’s been surprising at all because they’ve been showering me with that love – from my teammates to my coaches to obviously the fans and the community – since I stepped on campus in 2018. Indiana is just really excited about women’s basketball, the community is really excited about women’s basketball. And I’m excited to experience that at the professional level, but also stay close to Bloomington and the people that mean a lot to me.

“I’m excited to have some Hoosier fans in the stands this summer and just hope that they can learn to love the Fever the same way they supported us at IU.”