Abby Cooch is making the most of her ‘Denison experience’

As a data analytics major with a love for sports, Abby Cooch ’27 works with Denison’s athletics department to help coaches make informed decisions about their team’s fitness levels.

She specializes in analyzing player load, a wearable-technology metric that quantifies physical effort by measuring acceleration in all directions: forward and backward, side to side, up and down.

The department’s early venture into data research has been focused on women’s soccer and men’s lacrosse. The irony is there might not be a better case study than Cooch, the indefatigable point guard who led the women’s basketball team to its first NCAA title in March.

Her effort, quickness, and stamina — combined with an All-American skill set — are constants for coach Maureen Hirt’s team. Cooch is the motor that powered a talented and athletic Big Red lineup to a 30-2 record and a historic tournament run.

She has started every game since joining the team in the 2023-24 season and has logged more minutes than anyone in that span. Cooch played all 40 minutes in Denison’s 55-41 victory over the University of Scranton in the championship game and was at her best in the fourth quarter, hitting three 3-pointers and playing air-tight defense.

She was named the NCAA tournament’s most valuable player.

“In general, Abby is a rare to come by talent,” Hirt says. “She makes our team go and really impacts the game in so many ways. She can drive, shoot 3’s, facilitate, defend, and rebound. She has elite speed and ball-handling skills, but she also has such a competitive mindset. She will do absolutely anything it takes to win, and when moments get tough, she shines.”

Denison has provided Cooch a platform to pursue her passions of data science and basketball. Winning a national title and bonding with teammates she adores are added bonuses.

Denison was the first liberal arts college to offer data analytics as a major, and it recently included sports analytics to its list of academic concentrations.

In terms of basketball, Cooch wanted to play for a team that gave her a chance to make an immediate impact. As a member of Hirt’s transformative recruiting Class of 2027, Cooch has delivered.

“There’s a consistent presence about Abby,” says Ada Taute ’27, a fellow All-American guard. “She’s someone who helps set the standard, and it’s been that way since our first year. We rely on her leadership, her ability, her basketball IQ. We know she will give everything she has.”

In 2022, Hirt was selling a vision more than a track record of success. She was a first-time head coach, who came to Denison after serving as an Oberlin College assistant.

The Big Red basketball program was in transition, and Hirt spoke to recruits about building a winner through an uptempo style featuring athletic players.

The new coach had scouted Cooch at Princeton University’s summer camp for high school players. Hirt recalls her first impression of the 5-foot-6 point guard.

“This kid is a baller,” Hirt says.

Cooch played for Bishop Ireton High School, a perennial state power in Alexandria, Virginia. She had great college basketball options, including interest from some Division I programs.

“I didn’t really want to go to a big school because I felt like I would flourish in a setting like Denison,” says Cooch, who is minoring in economics. “The campus was beautiful, the facilities were amazing and the liberal arts education was appealing. I wanted to study data analytics, but I liked that you could take a wide range of courses like religion, gender studies, and art. Denison had what I was looking for.”

She also dug the team vibe Hirt was creating.

“There were no cliques, no drama, nothing like that,” Cooch says, recalling her first meeting with Big Red players. “One thing that makes us special is we don’t look for individual recognition. We are a team, and we act like it. We’re comfortable in each other’s company.”

The Big Red won 20 games in the 2023-24 season. Taute led the team in scoring and Cooch was voted the NCAC Newcomer of the Year. The squad made headlines as it rallied around Hirt, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare cancer that affects the lymphatic system. After an 18-day hospital stay, the coach returned to the bench, missing just five games.

“Just seeing her resilience and seeing her wanting to be here even though she was going through all the treatments was inspiring,” Cooch says. “It planted in our minds that if she can do that, if she can show up for us, then we have to show up, too.”

Long-term injuries to key players forced Cooch to average 36.1 minutes per game last season. She led the Big Red in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, and good nights of sleep. Denison won 15 games and qualified for the conference tournament.

“I think what allows Abby to play at such a high level for so many minutes is that she’s an elite competitor,” Hirt says. “We wouldn’t be where we are right now without her, and without her family taking the leap of faith in what this program could be three years ago.”

Cooch has always had a fascination with numbers and how underlying statistics can alter perceptions, especially in sports.

When she heard Gail Murphy, coordinator of sports performance analytics, was looking for students to assist in data-driven projects last year, Cooch volunteered. Denison prides itself on innovation, and Cooch wanted it on the ground floor.

She’s worked with the men’s lacrosse and women’s soccer teams, analyzing data collected from the Catapult wearable technology. Cooch has helped Murphy and Eric Winters, associate professor for health, exercise & sports studies, provide easily digestible information to coaches about their athletes’ physical exertion levels in training and games.

The intel can help coaches monitor workloads and reduce injuries.

“Abby has been great,” Murphy says. “We had her present her work, and James Baker ’20, a biomechanist who has worked with Olympic athletes, sat in on the presentation and gave her great feedback.”

Last summer, Cooch interned with Beyond Pulse, a company that helps coaches better understand the health and performance of their athletes through data-driven technology.

“I’ve definitely found what I wanted to do at Denison,” Cooch says. “There’s not a lot of universities that would give students these kinds of opportunities.”

Not all of Cooch’s efforts can be tracked by technology or found in box scores.

She serves as DJ for the team’s pre- and post-game dance parties in the locker room. She helps drive team culture with her selfless approach and willingness to talk to teammates dealing with nagging issues.

On a Big Red team without captains, Cooch is one of its most influential leaders.

“She’s someone who’s very lighthearted,” says Taute, who communicated frequently with Cooch when Taute was rehabbing a knee injury last season. “You can joke with her, but she’s also someone you can turn to when you’re having a difficult time. Abby is just an all-around great person.”

As a point guard, she takes pleasure in getting teammates involved in the offense. But when the Big Red needs Cooch to put on the cape and carry them over the line, she’s more than capable.

In the fourth quarter of the championship game, she fueled a 22-7 run with a near-flawless performance. Cooch scored 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting and dished out a pair of assists.

“Abby is just a gamer, period,” assistant coach Olivia Woolam says. “So when a moment calls for her to rise up for it, she always does.”

Denison became the first team in Division III history to win the title after starting the season unranked in national polls. That slice of history means more to Cooch than being named tournament MVP.

“I don’t really care much about the individual accolades,” she says. “They come when the team does well, and I think winning the national championship is way more important.”

Hirt smiles when discussing all that her point guard has achieved on and off the court in just three seasons.

“We want our athletes to thrive in their time with us,” the coach says. “Abby has taken full advantage of the Denison experience.”