If there was ever a poster-child for determination and perseverance, Aben Cooper’s picture might be on it. Few would have guessed that the young man who played in five varsity games as a freshman and scored a grand total of eight points would wind up as one of the best post players at the small college level by the time he graduated.
Even after his sophomore season, when he played in just 11 games and scored 41 points the jury was still out on the athletic but gangly 6’ 4” product out of Aurora West High School.
However, Steve Yount was brought in as the head coach of the Vikings after a disastrous 7-19 season in Cooper’s freshman year of 1989-90 and he kept seeing something in the skinny jumping jack with the soft left hand. He brought Cooper along slowly and during his junior season that confidence paid off. Cooper played in all 26 games and averaged 13.3 points and 7.3 rebounds as Augustana went 18-8, including wins in seven of the last nine game.
That set the stage for a remarkable senior season that culminated with the Vikings playing for the NCAA Division III national championship in March of 1993. Yount’s club turned in a 24-7 overall record in a schedule that included a loss at NCAA Division II national champion California-Bakersfield by a score of 82-70 and an 86-73 defeat at the hands of division one St. Louis University.
While most of the attention was focused on sharp-shooting guard Kirk Anderson, who would be named the NCAA Division III Final Four MVP, Cooper was extremely consistent and made teams pay for focusing too much on Anderson’s perimeter shooting. He averaged 17.1 points per game and shot .528 (223-422) from the floor. He led the team in rebounding with an 8.6 average and was a first team all-conference selection as the Vikings won the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championship with a 12-2 league record. Individually, he led the team in rebounding in 21 of the 31 games.
After sewing up the league title with an improbable 79-78 win at Illinois Wesleyan when Anderson didn’t play because of an ankle injury, Yount’s club headed into post-season play with victories in 14 of its final 16 games.
What followed was one of the most remarkable runs in Augustana’s storied basketball history and Cooper was right in the middle of all of it. The Vikings would play six games against teams that won their respective conferences and five would be away from the friendly confines of the Carver Center. It started with a 79-66 win over DePauw on a Thursday night (March 4) at home and would end with a tough-to-swallow 71-68 loss to Ohio Northern in the national championship game on March 20 in Buffalo, New York.
He scored 19 points in that win over DePauw but there was little time to rest as the Vikings traveled to Beloit just two nights later to take on the Midwest Conference Champion Buccaneers. Augustana lost to Beloit 71-68 at home in the first game of the season but the second meeting was a clinic for the Vikings. In front of a packed house at Flood Arena, the Vikings broke the game open with a 17-4 run to start the second half and would go on to win 92-66 with Cooper scoring 19 points.
That victory earned Augustana the right to go to number one ranked Wisconsin-Platteville for the sectional. On the first night, the Vikings slipped by LaVerne 87-84 as Cooper had 20 points and 11 rebounds. That set up a battle with UW-Platteville, at the time owners of a 34 game home-court winning streak. Cooper may have turned in the quietest 31 point performance in history as Augustana defeated the Pioneers 100-86. He scored 31 points and pulled down 12 rebounds but was overshadowed just a bit as Anderson ripped off 41 points, including an NCAA record 12 three-pointers.
It was on to the NCAA Division III Final Four for the fourth time in Augustana history and it was Cooper’s breakaway dunk in the final stages of the game that sealed the 83-81 win and put the Vikings in the title game. Augustana fell 71-68 to Ohio Northern in the championship game but that certainly didn’t diminish what Cooper and his mates accomplished.
He was named to the Basketball Weekly NCAA Division III All-American team and was also honored as an Academic All-American.
He graduated from Augustana in 1993 with a degree in biology and went to Northwestern University’s School of Medicine where he earned his Master’s Degree in physical therapy. He later picked up his Master’s of Business Administration at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He spent 17 years as a physical therapist and is currently a case manager for Orthonet.
Aben and his wife Katherine have two children, Simone and Arlyn and live in Chicago.
