Nicole Hampton was the third and final sister of the Hampton dynasty for the Lady Chap basketball team that spanned 11 years and more than 300 games. She and her two sisters were inducted into the LCU Athletic Hall of Honor in 2016, shortly after her prolific playing career ended.
Nicole was a two-time NAIA All-American before the transition to NCAA Div. II and qualified as the NAIA's career free-throw percentage leader. She is LCU's career leader in points (1,796), assists (659), rebounds (1,053), steals (330) and free-throw percentage (91.1%). Nicole is the only Lady Chaps player to produce a triple-double and completed the task twice. She nearly completed the honor for a third time with a 22-point, 13-rebound, nine-assist and seven-steal performance in the Lady Chaps national championship game in Indianapolis.
Her senior season, Nicole claimed D2CCA and WBCA 1st Team All-American, South Central Region Player of the Year, Heartland Conference Player of the Year, Heartland Conference Tournament MVP, CoSIDA Academic All-American, All-South Central Tournament Team honors while leading the Lady Chaps to a National Title in their first year of eligibilty at the NCAA Division II level. Within the Heartland Conference, Nicole was also a two-time First Team All-Conference selection and a three-time Heartland Honor Roll member.
The close of the 2015-16 LCU women's basketball season not only closed with a national championship title, but it also closed the "Hampton Era" for the women's basketball program. Since 2005, 11 consecutive seasons witnessed at least one of three daughters of Sharon and Johnny Hampton on the Lady Chaparrals roster. In birth order, Jordan Hampton, Brittany Hampton (played her senior season as Brittany Roberts) and
Nicole Hampton made the move from Canyon High School in Canyon, Texas to the Lady Chaps roster and each paved their own way to successful careers.
Closing out the 2015-16 season, the Lady Chaparrals had played 1029 games in their program history and 331 have been played with a Hampton eligible for action. That accounts 32.2% of the program's history. LCU has 590 all-time wins and 262 (44.4%) have come with a "Hampton." Since the start of the 2005-06 season and excluding the 2014-15 season (
Nicole Hampton's redshirt season), LCU has gone 262-69 for a 79.2% win percentage. LCU is 328-370 (47.0%) all-time in combined seasons without a Hampton.
All three sister hit the 1,000-point plateau in their careers and the trio combined for 4,994 points. All three were also deadly from the free-throw line. Jordan set the program record from the free-throw line with a career mark of .865, only to have the mark broken by Brittany (.874), who had her mark snapped by Nicole (.911) to place all three sisters as the top three in program history. Nicole, who holds the NAIA record for consecutive free-throws made (63), also closed her career with a 2.4 assist/turnover ratio.
Nicole went on to become a nurse after her playing career.
