The toughest player on the court doesn't always show up on the state sheet. For the Indiana Fever, it's Lexie Hull, who's been playing through not one but two black eyes. With her team already down Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, Hull has stepped up to help keep the Fever in the playoff hunt.
It was on Sunday, August 24, and Tuesday, August 26, that she got nailed in the face in back-to-back games. On Tuesday, against the Seattle Storm, a head-to-head collision with Gabby Williams resulted in double black eyes.
“She looked like an Avatar,” Cunningham said on her podcast, Show Me Something Sophie Cunningham & West Wilson. “She sent me a picture and I FaceTimed her immediately and I was like ‘Dude, are you OK?'”
While Cunningham is home recovering from a torn MCL, she also texted Clark during the game to check on Hull. “I texted Caitlin immediately during the game and was like, ‘How concussed is Lex?'”
The shocking part is that Hull was not concussed. Despite her black eyes, she played in Indiana's next game against the Los Angeles Sparks.
“Lexie was like, ‘Actually, it kinda woke me up. I think my adrenaline hit and I feel better than I have the past couple weeks, like I'm not concussed, I feel good,'” Cunningham said of her conversation with Hull.
The Stanford grad has stepped up with a couple of big games since Cunningham's season-ending MCL injury. She scored 23 points against the Minnesota Lynx right before suffering the black eyes. Then, in Indiana's first game of September, Hull scored 18 in a loss to the Phoenix Mercury.
With three games remaining for the Fever, they hold a 1.5-game advantage over the ninth-place Sparks and are just half a game away from the Storm in seventh place. Even with the minor injury, it appears Hull will continue to suit up for Indiana's playoff push.
