Northern Illinois University women’s basketball alumna Ally Lehman won the 2019 Armed Forces Basketball Championship in June as a member of the all-Army women’s team. Lehman was graduated in 2017 as Northern Illinois’ all-time leader in assists with 538, but it was one she received from Northern Illinois head coach Lisa Carlsen recently that got her back in the game.
Lehman is a first lieutenant in the United States Army with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Ky.. It was during a training exercise in late March that she found out about the all-Army basketball team.
“I found out about it when I was at JRTC,” Lehman said. “It’s supposed to train you for deployment, so you have no contact with the outside world and missions all day and all night. The OCs and I got talking about sports and I mentioned I played at NIU. One of them mentioned that they had a friend play for all-Army and loved it.”
“As soon as I got out of the box, I had about a day to get my application turned in. On the application you list your high school accomplishments, your college experience, and they ask for a letter of recommendation. Coach Carlsen wrote me a phenomenal letter of recommendation that really put me near the top. It ended up being a late application, but her letter moved them to open a spot for me and I flew out to Pennsylvania for the trials. From there, they make six total cuts in a two-week process. We got a week to practice together, then you go down to Florida to play.”
After doing some quick research on the Armed Forces Championship, Carlsen wrote Lehman’s recommendation. While listing some of her career achievements such as her career record for assists, her 1,461 points, and her two career triple-doubles, Carlsen made sure to point out Lehman’s passion for both basketball and serving the country as a soldier.
“She was excited to make it,” said Carlsen. “It looked like, through the adventure on social media, that they had a great time in preparation. She looked good. I watched the first couple games and she was arguably one of the best players on the floor.”
Lehman entered the U.S. Army as one of only 11 women in the U.S. Army infantry. At Northern Illinois she was only 10 rebounds shy of becoming the fourth player in the NCAA Division I with 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 500 assists.
The All-Army team took on the Navy, Air Force, and Marines in a double round-robin tournament June 2-7 at Naval Station Mayport in Florida. Lehman’s Army team was 5-1 in its six preliminary games, and score more than 80 points in each victory. In the championship game June 8, Army defeated Navy for the second time at its home station, 71-62, to win the championship. Lehman averaged six points and six rebounds per game in the tournament.
“A majority of the team played Division I,” Lehman said. “A few went abroad to play semi-pro, but everyone on the team had a bachelor’s degree so we had all specialists and above. We had a wide variety with college experience, so they were used to the intensity and the speed of the game.”
— Northern Illinois University