Laurie Koehn and Kamie Ethridge have known each other for nearly 30 years. The Washington State women’s basketball coaches first met when Koehn was an eighth grader in Moundridge, Kansas, already a basketball wizard. Ethridge, then an assistant at Kansas State, recruited Koehn to the Wildcats, despite the fact that she gravitated toward the Kansas Jayhawks, one of the premier basketball brands in the country.
However, Ethridge and her boss, coach Deb Patterson, now Ethridge’s director of player personnel at WSU, knew they wanted Koehn and earned her trust. “She was just a small-town kid that grew up shooting the basketball on an outdoor court in her driveway and had no other way to play,” Ethridge said. “She became obsessed with (basketball), and in particular, shooting the basketball, because that’s all she could really do in her little town.
And honestly, I believe, became one of the best shooters in the world.” Ethridge’s description of Koehn as “one of the best shooters in the world” is not hyperbole. When Koehn left Kansas State after four seasons in 2005, she had made more three-point shots (392) than anyone in NCAA women’s college basketball.
Her record stood until 2015 and has since been broken by 17 women, most recently Caitlin Clark (548). Ethridge said Koehn’s three-point shot was ahead of her time. “The game was a little bit different then.
It wasn’t as open, it wasn’t as three-point dominant as it is now,” Ethridge said. “Her abi.