Tyra Buss-Davison Interview: Leading Scorer That Paved Way For Indiana Women's Basketball

As the current Indiana women's basketball team has had a record-breaking season, the Hoosiers have started reflecting back on players like Tyra Buss-Davison who paved the way. Read about the program leading scorer's journey with Indiana hoops and how she still shows her Hoosier support even from 8,000 kilometers away.

Tyra Buss

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Many collegiate athletes remove themselves from the game after graduation, not for bad reasons, but maybe because they didn't get the opportunity to play professional ball or care to provide endless support for their alma mater. But former Indiana women's basketball guard Tyra Buss-Davison is doing both.

Hoosier fans know her as Indiana's all-time leading scorer as she graduated from Indiana in 2018 with 2,364 points across her four years. After a pair of collegiate coaching stints, Buss-Davison is now playing professional basketball in Lithuania for team Aistes-LSMU.

Tyra Buss drives to the basket during an Aistes-LSMU basketball game of the Lithuanian league / Tyra Buss

Notice she got a new name? Her husband Brad who played at Wisconsin from 2017-22 also plays professionally in Lithuania for BC Nevėžis. Despite the seven hour time difference between Lithuania and Indiana, Buss-Davison is always watching her Hoosiers.

"It's really cool to just be able to celebrate them now and to see the special season that they've been having not only the last couple years but this year," Buss-Davison said. "It's just absolutely amazing, and I love being able to watch them."

Buss-Davison said she prefers watching them on the weekends since the tipoff isn't so late. Even if it means staying up or getting up early on non-game days though, she's always supporting from nearly 8,000 kilometers away.

"Usually I don't have practice till later on so I can sleep in, so I'll be able to stay up until 3:30 a.m. to be able to watch them play, cause it's just really important to me."

Buss-Davison may not have met all the players, especially since many of them are new this season, but she keeps up with the team on social media, and they do the same for her. Of course, she's especially in tune with their playing styles.

"There's so many different weapons whether it's Sydney Parrish knocking down the three, but she can also do multiple things," Buss-Davison said. "Same with Sara Scalia. I love the way she plays. She kind of reminds me a little bit of me just because she's a little bit smaller kind of like how I was. She gets in there and gets scrappy."

She said graduate student guard Grace Berger does it all, and she wishes she could compare herself to her or even senior forward Mackenzie Holmes, but after all Buss-Davison was never a post player. However, like Holmes, she was a scrappy defender, totaling 293 steals. She also admires junior guard Chloe Moore-McNeil's game.

"Chloe Moore-McNeil is unbelievably defensive," Buss-Davison said. "She's just a defensive stopper. She's so long and lengthy. I would hate if I was on the other team and she had to guard me because you just can't get any easy looks off of her."

The current Hoosiers have had a record-breaking season from the crowds to winning the first outright Big Ten regular season title in program history. The past month or so, there's been one common theme in the post game press conferences: recognizing Tyra Buss and the women that paved the way.

"I wanted to come to Indiana to help build the program up, and I'm so blessed I was able to be a part of that, but now the players the last couple of years have sustained that and then built it even stronger," Buss-Davison said. 

Mar 2, 2018; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indiana Hoosiers guard Tyra Buss (3) drives the ball around Maryland Terrapins guard Channise Lewis (3) in the first period during the third round of the Big Ten Conference Tournament at Bankers Life Fieldhouse / © Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports

A humble player herself, Buss-Davison recognizes the current team has no ego and doesn't care who gets the credit. She's not at all surprised about their success given the many weapons the team has. They make for a difficult scout, she added.

As the team has alluded to, this success didn't happen overnight. Buss-Davison first arrived in Bloomington in 2014 after a highly decorative high school career at Mt. Carmel High School in Illinois, a short two mile drive away from the Indiana border.

There, she was Illinois Ms. Basketball twice and averaged 45.8 points (you read that right) her senior year. Arriving to Indiana in Buss-Davison's freshman year was current head coach Teri Moren in her first season. That year, the team only won four conference games. They did not know what was coming.

"We turned it around my sophomore season to not only make it to the NCAA Tournament, but just to be able to win the first round game that hadn't been done in 33 years was extremely special," Buss-Davison said. "I think that's where the building all started."

The next year, Buss-Davison was awarded WBCA All-American honorable mention as the first Hoosier to earn such an honor in 31 years. 

"It was really cool to see the buzz and hype around campus and people not only talking about the men's side but now incorporating the women's side to it, and it was really cool to be able to be a part of that," Buss-Davison said.

In Buss-Davison's 2018 senior year, it happened — a WNIT championship.

"That's a day I'll remember for the rest of my life," Buss said. "Not a lot of people can say they ended their last collegiate basketball game with a win, and we were able to do that on our home floor celebrating with the community."

I will remember March 31, 2018 FOREVER💕 https://t.co/hgEdDul2Fb

— Tyra (Buss) Davison (@tbuss3) April 1, 2018

More than 13,000 fans came to support the Hoosiers that day, which at the time was the record for a women's game. That number was shattered this year as Indiana raked in more than 17,000 fans in its home game versus Iowa.

Now outside the program, Buss-Davison has enjoyed watching the teams to follow climb the ladder. She said she always trusted and believed in Moren, who she still keeps in touch with, and was blessed to play with phenomenal teammates.

"I genuinely am super happy for their success, and it's just awesome to see this special group come together. There's so many new pieces, but their common goal is to win."

Buss-Davison admitted it can be challenging playing overseas with the language barrier, but she's soaking in playing the game she truly loves while enjoying a new country with her husband whose coaches got Buss-Davison the professional ball connection. 

Tyra Buss Davison supports husband Brad Davison at a BC Nevėžis game of the Lithuanian Basketball League / Tyra Buss

Of course she made the team and is enjoying it, but she'll never forget her Hoosier roots and family and will always be a fan of the program that proves to have some of the most hardworking athletes in the country.

"They've proved with the season that they're having with being Big Ten champs and now hopefully making a run in this Big Ten Tournament and then hoping to make a postseason run in the NCAA Tournament."

Related stories on Indiana women's basketball

• HOOSIERS TO TAKE ON SPARTANS IN BIG TEN TOURNEY Friday morning, the top seeded Hoosiers will face No. 9 seed Michigan State in the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament quarterfinals. Match details and how to watch are inside the story. CLICK HERE
• SPARTANS COACH DEAN LOCKWOOD SAYS INDIANA WILL BE A HEADACHE Michigan State got one job done beating Nebraska in the second round of the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament Thursday, but now it's time to play top seed Indiana on Friday. Spartans acting head coach Dean Lockwood said the team can celebrate for 10 minutes and then get to prepping. CLICK HERE
• TERI MOREN SAYS FIRST BIG TEN TOURNEY GAME IS MOST IMPORTANT Friday, the No. 1-seeded Indiana Hoosiers will take on No. 9 Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. Head coach Teri Moren said the first game is the most important to gain momentum and lead Indiana to a tournament title. CLICK HERE