Hannemann to play pro ball in Ireland

Katie Hannemann helped UIC to its best season ever. Photo: Steve Woltmann

Former UIC women’s basketball player and 2014 grad Katie Hannemann is heading overseas — she signed a contract to play professional basketball in Ireland.

Hannemann, a 2014 grad in biological sciences and psychology, will play for the Brunell Ladies Basketball Club of the Ireland Women’s Premier League. Hannemann joins Rachel Story (Portugal), Jasmine Bailey (Italy) and Jessie Miller (Germany) as former Flames currently playing professionally overseas.

Hannemann appeared in 112 games at UIC from 2009-14, including 82 starts. She finished her career with 1,108 points and 605 rebounds, which ranks 14th and ninth in program history.

Hannemann ranks sixth in program history with a 49.6 field-goal percentage and ninth with 268 made free throws.

Hannemann showed remarkable improvement throughout her UIC career as she averaged 14.3 points and 7.2 rebounds over her final 65 appearances, compared with 3.8 points and 2.9 rebounds in her first 45 contests. Hannemann finished her UIC career with 55 double-digit scoring efforts, 12 double-doubles and 10 games in which she scored 20 or more points.

As a junior in 2012-13,  she earned Second-Team All-Horizon League honors.

As a senior in 2013-14, Hannemann helped UIC to the best season in program history. The Flames won a program-record 26 games, collected the first postseason championship (Women’s Basketball Invitational) in school history and owned the nation’s largest turnaround. UIC collected 17 more wins (26-9) than the entire 2012-13 campaign (9-21), the largest win differential amongst 347 programs nationwide.