Alex Harden is part of the 2024 Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame induction class. The class will be inducted on Sun., Jan. 28.

Wilbert Harden guided his daughter's basketball game with two main directives starting at age 5 at the YMCA in Springfield, Ill.

First and foremost, defense wins games. Second, point guards play like Magic Johnson and Jason Kidd, not Allen Iverson.

"You've got to make the players around you better," he said. "That's your job. She took to it. She always made players around her better."

With dad coaching and prodding her through cone drills in the driveway and gym, Alex Harden grew into that type of basketball star for Wichita State. Playing for coach Jody Adams, Harden headlined the program's first three NCAA Tournament teams from 2011-2015 as a 5-foot-11 do-it-all force. She ranks first on the WSU career list for points (1,708), second in steals (278), third for assists (436) and seventh in rebounds (683).

Harden, a member of the 2024 class of the Wichita State Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame, earned honorable mention Associated Press All-America honors and Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year honors in 2014-15. She twice claimed MVC Defensive Player of the Year honors (2013, 2014) and earned spots on the All-MVC team three times.

"I liked playing defense and I hated getting scored on," she said. "I hated losing. Getting stops was part of the game."

In 2015, Harden became the program's career scoring leader and Adams called her team's LeBron James.

"She can do it all," Adams told The Wichita Eagle. "She didn't come with that, she worked to that. When other people are sleeping, she's working."

Harden grew playing many sports and excelled in basketball and track as a four-time Class 2A champion long jumper.

In all of those, her dad remembers, she beat the older girls and he knew his daughter possessed something special. In high school, she wrote a two-page paper explaining why she should be allowed to play football – a desire her dad squelched due to injury concerns.

When he coached her basketball teams, he usually filled her team with four less-talented players for scrimmages to help them improve and help his daughter grow as a leader.

"You're the quarterback," he said. "You've got to know everybody's job and where they're supposed to be."

She chose basketball because she enjoyed the teamwork. As a sophomore in high school, she started receiving recruiting letters. Wichita State and Adams stood out because of their emphasis on defense – just like dad wanted. Former Shocker assistant Bridgette Gordon played a significant role in the decision.

"I wanted to go somewhere where I would be pushed to get better," Harden said. "I liked that they played defense, and they were fast-paced."

She started nine games as a freshman and earned a spot on the MVC's All-Freshman team. In 2012-13, Wichita State won its first MVC title and advanced to its first NCAA Tournament. Two more titles and two more automatic bids followed with the Shockers going 24-10, 26-7 and 29-5 in those seasons with non-conference wins over Kansas State twice, Ohio State and Clemson.

Counting three MVC Tournament titles, the Shockers went 55-8 against conference opponents from 2013-2015, capped by a 17-1 MVC record in 2015.

Harden credits the seniors on the 2013 team with pushing the Shockers to the top of the MVC and through the bracket at the all-important tournament in St. Charles, Mo. All-MVC guard Jessica Diamond and others showed the younger players how to finish off that season with a ticket to the NCAAs.

"That first (MVC) title was so sweet," Harden said. "All of those were huge. We worked all year to get there."

The Phoenix Mercury took her in the second round of the 2015 WNBA Draft. She played 60 games over two seasons for the Mercury before a shoulder injury in her third year sidelined her. She finished her career with eight seasons overseas, with stops in Israel, Turkey, Portugal and Spain.

Harden lives in San Antonio where she works in real estate and is on the community relations team for the NBA's San Antonio Spurs.