PRIDE OF THE LIONS
Overcoming personal tragedies, Abbey Hsu has put Columbia basketball on her shoulders
PAIGE Bueckers was leading UConn to the Final Four as the first freshman to become national player of the year. Haley Jones was en route to being named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, leading Stanford to its first title in 19 years.
And Abbey Hsu — who as a freshman the previous season led Columbia to just its second winning season in 33 years — was serving miso soup and spicy salmon rolls at Bluefin Sushi in Parkland, Fla. The star guard did it all — deliveries, busing tables, hosting — at the restaurant in her hometown while taking a gap year from school.
“I just needed the year off,” Hsu said. “It was the right decision for me.”
There was too much to process. Too often, there was something to process.
Hsu faced uncertainty as a high school junior who tore her ACL before committing to a college. About two weeks later, she evacuated Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the deadliest high school mass shooting in the country’s history.
COVID-19 arrived during Hsu’s freshman year at Columbia, abruptly ending the program’s breakthrough season. About two weeks later, her father, Alex, became the first South Florida medical professional to die from the new disease.
Hsu, the youngest of seven children, returned home and remained there for nearly a year and a half. She grieved with her family. She saved up money from tips. She slept in her car while taking a crosscountry road trip from Florida to Washington with a friend.
“It was so much fun,” Hsu said. “I never would’ve done that in-season because you never want to take days off. … Since I’m 8 years old, my whole life has been basketball, basketball, basketball, literally every single day. It was time for me to take in everything that happened to me and explore some interests outside of it.
“I think it was a good mental and physical break from basketball.”
There is more to process.
FOLLOWING her return, Columbia — which averaged 8.3 wins per season in the 35 years the program existed before Hsu’s arrival — won 53 games in the next two seasons. Last season was the best in program history, featuring 28 wins, its first Ivy League title and a run to the WNIT championship game. Hsu (pronounced “shoe”) led the conference in scoring and ranked second in the nation in 3-pointers made per game.
Sold-out crowds now frequent Levien Gymnasium, filled with fans holding up shoes to cheer the senior who recently became the Ivy League’s all-time 3-point leader, who is on pace to become the Lions’ all-time scoring leader, who was the only player outside of a power conference to be selected for last summer’s USA AmeriCup team, who could become the sixth Ivy League player ever taken in the WNBA draft.
“[Wearing] Columbia women’s basketball [gear] and the logo on you means a lot on this campus now,” Hsu said. “It’s pretty cool to see how that’s transformed since my freshman year. Nobody cared about basketball games or knew what was going on. [Now you hear,] ‘Hey, I’m coming to this game,’ and they know the exact date.
“I’m not gonna sit here and be so humble, and be like, ‘It’s whatever.’ It is cool to know there’s little girls looking up to you. It is cool to know we have that impact on this community.”
It became possible when Meg Griffith first watched a high school sophomore pull up from deep.
“It was just, ‘Who is that kid?’ ” the
Columbia coach recalled. “She was a confident and very intense player. The look she had, that’s when I fell in love with the kid.”
Hsu began playing against her brother on her driveway hoop, growing into a young woman who would shoot until her hand literally bled.
“My cousin played basketball and made the newspaper in her town, and I remember seeing that and thinking that was the coolest thing ever,” Hsu said. “I thought she was the biggest star ever, and I was like, ‘Mom, I want to do that.’ She signed me up for a league and I never looked back.
“When I started getting recognized and I started getting [recruiting] letters, it was addicting.”
She was a 5-foot-11 junior who could jump and grab the rim, but her choices narrowed after she tore the ACL in her right knee. Her first visit to Columbia came during her recovery.
“I like to think of everything as a blessing in disguise,” Hsu said. “I think it helped me figure out what school I wanted to go to. When I told coaches I tore my ACL, you could see who was really, ‘We got your back,’ and who was, ‘Let’s see how this goes.’ ”
THEN came Valentine’s Day 2018. Hsu was in class. An alarm sounded. She believed it was a fire drill. Soon, she would learn of the mass shooting, which claimed 17 lives (14 students) and injured 17 more, including teamwho mate Maddy Wilford, was shot four times.
“Nothing’s normal after that,” Hsu said. “The kids you grew up going to school with were all affected by it. In a way, it brought us all closer because we shared that traumatic experience that hapyou pened. It does make realize life is a valuable thing.”
After transferring to nearby St. Thomas Aquinas for her senior year, Hsu came to Columbia, sold on the opportunity to make an instant impact. She led the team in scoring as a freshman, while helping the Lions — who had endured nine straight losing seasons — reach their first Ivy League Tournament in four tries. The pandemic prevented those games from being played. It took away everything.
Hsu credits her father for her work ethic. He was raised in Hong Kong before moving to the UnitStates, ed and paid for medical school by taking odd jobs — including working in an auto shop and a Chinese restaurant — before opening his pracan tice, as internist, in Florida in 1988. Shortly after the canof cellation the 2020 seaAlex son, was taken to the hospital with flu-like symptoms. As his condition rapidly worsened, he sent a final group text to his famthat ily, writing he wanted to live to see his grandchildren, vowing to fight the illness. He died on March 26, before the results of his COVID test
came back positive.
Despite dealing with a multitude of tragedies at home, Hsu impressed her Columbia coach with her ability to “consistently show up and … still [be] the same person every day.”
“We’ve been with her through some of the hardest moments in her life,” Griffith said. “So much tragedy. She’s gone through some major life-changing events. She’s the youngest of seven, and she’s always been the glue and the rock of her family. … I always say to her, ‘I’m so proud of you. You consistently show up and you’re still the same person every day.’ It’s really remarkable. That’s what makes her so special.”
The Ivy League canceled all sports for the 2020-21 school year. It only made it easier for Hsu to take a year off from school, to mourn and reflect, to be with family and friends.
“The fact that we’re able to play basketball, as simple as that, we’re able to wake up, it makes you play for more than just yourself,” Hsu said. “You have other people that have been affected in your lives that weren’t so lucky. It’s definitely a privilege.”
In her first game back with Columbia in 20 months, on
Nov. 9, 2021, Hsu scored 22 points, beginning a season that ended with a school-record 25 wins and the Ivy League’s first WNIT quarterfinal appearance. Last season, after Hsu carried the Lions to the best season in school history, they were snubbed on Selection Sunday after falling in the Ivy League tournament semifinals — “It was heartbreaking, like getting broken up with by the love of your life,” Hsu said —and went on to reach the WNIT title game, falling at Kansas.
We’ve been with her through some of the hardest moments in her life. … I always say to her, ‘I’m so proud of you. You consistently show up and you’re still the same person every day.’ It’s really remarkable.
— Meg Griffith, Columbia women’s basketball coach
NOW a senior, Hsu hopes to get the Lions to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the women’s basketball program began in 1984-85.
“Her presence, when she walks in a room, you know she’s there,” Griffith said. “Four years ago, she was a little bit more unsure and insecure, not as confident. Everybody knows who she is now. I think she’s owning that.
“She’s a very even-keeled kid, but she knows who she is at Columbia. She wears it well and she wears it with a lot of humility, but she also wears it, like, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ ”
Her last dance is underway. She expects it to end during the NCAA Tournament.
The Lions (7-4) have won five straight games in their challenging non-conference schedule, with a 3-0 mark against Big East teams, which most recently featured Hsu’s last-minute game-winning 3-point play against Villanova. Hsu, a career 38 percent 3-point shooter, is averaging a careerbest 21.5 points and 7.2 rebounds. After a trip west to play at the University of San Francisco and at Pacific this week, the Ivy League slate opens Jan. 6 in Morningside Heights against Penn.
“She’s not just changed the program from a statistical, win-loss standpoint,” Griffith said. “She’s completely changed it culturally.”
In a few months, Hsu will graduate. It’s a lot to process. There’s still so much left to do.
“This is her program,” Griffith said. “I always say that to her. ‘We go as you go.’”