The Saturday before Maggie Lyon played in the Northwestern women’s basketball team’s first NCAA tournament game in 18 years, she was at New Trier working on her game with her dad.
It was just like old times.
“We’ve been doing that for a long time,” Bruce Lyon said. “She shoots, and I rebound. It’s always been something fun for us to do together.”
These days, it’s a way for the father and daughter to catch up, too.
“It gives us a chance to talk, and it can be about anything, not just basketball,” he said. “We talk about something in the news, about her friends or about school. It’s no different than when we would sit down at a dinner table.”
Maggie Lyon’s junior season ended March 20 with a 57-55 loss to Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Waco, Texas. A team captain, the 6-foot-1 guard scored 12 points to go with five assists and three rebounds. She finished the season averaging 13.8 points a game and now has 1,197 points for her career.
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More important than her personal achievements, Maggie Lyon helped the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament and the most wins (23) since the 1995-96 season. Growing up in Wilmette about 15 minutes from Northwestern’s campus and graduating from New Trier in 2012, she said the Wildcats women’s basketball team was her favorite college program.
“I had always dreamed of going to the NCAA tournament,” she said. “It’s special to do it at a place like Northwestern, where we are starting a tradition. I’ve been a lifelong fan, and I wanted to come here and change something. It’s surreal.”
Maggie Lyon’s basketball relationship with her dad goes back to her youth days when he coached her teams. Once she got to high school, the two continued to share a close connection to the game.
There was the time during Maggie Lyon’s freshman season that she and her dad made the 100-plus round trip to New Lenox to watch Providence play. The Celtics were an upcoming opponent for the Trevians, and Maggie Lyon wanted to see them play for herself.
“One of my favorite memories is walking into that gym and seeing Maggie in the stands with her dad,” said New Trier girls basketball coach Teri Rodgers, who had Maggie Lyon on varsity all four seasons. “I couldn’t believe it. She just loves basketball.”
Maggie Lyon remembered that day.
“My mom was so mad at us for going all that way during the week to watch basketball,” Maggie Lyon said with a laugh. “But I’ve always been a basketball junkie.”
Maggie Lyon’s mom, Mary Alice Lyon, was a former college basketball player at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. As Maggie Lyon got older, Mary Alice Lyon coached her teams in junior high school.
Bruce and Mary Alice Lyon both traveled to Waco to watch their daughter play Arkansas. They were joined by Maggie Lyon’s older sister, Amy Lyon, two sets of aunts and uncles and one cousin. Maggie Lyon’s older brother, Walt Lyon, is in law school at Loyola University in Chicago and couldn’t get the time off.
“I am lucky to have great parents that love to share the sport with me,” Maggie Lyon said. “My whole career has been fun. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
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