Toby Fournier was 14 when she dunked for the first time. Just two years after she first picked up a ball, Fournier was flying toward the hoop and also her future. Away from the ground and the judgmental people that walked on it. Dunking for the first time was an indescribable joy.
Showing people her accomplishment, however, was not so joyful.
This generation of male athletes grew up with mixtapes. Every men’s star you watch on TV at the college level probably has a YouTube compilation of his AAU games readily available with a quick search. The women’s game is catching up, but five years ago, when Fournier first posted a video of her dunking, it wasn’t common. Fournier isn’t the first woman to dunk — Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles and many others have done it too — but she was well-positioned to benefit from the modern social media machine. Her dunking video quickly went viral.
In the video, Fournier takes off from just inside the free throw line, her blonde ponytail swinging behind her as she extends for the hoop. When she lands, she is overcome with elation and a wide smile, so wide her eyes squint and wrinkle. When she posted it to her Instagram account, she had around 1,000 followers. She gained 15,000 more overnight. It was exciting, but also harrowing. “I had grown men in my comment section saying all kinds of things,” Fournier tells Hoops HQ. “But that’s just the way the internet works. When you’re doing something right, people are going to have something to say. I’ve learned not to focus on the negative.”
It took a lot of confidence for Fournier to harness that first taste of exposure and make something good come out of it, despite the nasty chatter. Because Fournier didn’t go viral and then disappear. She became one of the most sought after recruits in her class. And she did all of that in just seven years. From first picking up a basketball at 12 to being a top freshman this season playing for Kara Lawson at Duke, Fournier’s rise has been a whirlwind.
Basketball used to terrify Fournier. Growing up she played — and eventually quit — countless sports. She even tried gymnastics, but from the first practice, Fournier was already too tall. As a kid, she fell into a routine. Her mom and dad would sign her up for a sport, she would go for a couple weeks, maybe months if they were lucky, and then ultimately decide it wasn’t for her. Eventually, her parents came to the conclusion that Fournier just wasn’t the sporty type.
Once she started playing basketball at 12, things changed. Fournier loved it, so much so that it scared her. She wanted to be good at her newfound passion and the idea of making mistakes was crippling. During her first tryout for a team in Ontario, Fournier didn’t even really try out. She was there, but she was too anxious to shoot in warmups. Fournier didn’t make the team that year – “Obviously,” she says with a laugh. But that remains her favorite basketball memory because she learned that if she wanted to accomplish her goals, she would have to find the courage to make them happen, rather than sitting back and waiting. It also taught her the value of resilience. Without that moment, Fournier wouldn’t have been able to handle having her video explode two years later. She also wouldn’t be the player she is now. “Even though it wasn’t super positive, it had a positive effect,” she says. “Basketball was a thing that stuck for me. It was a thing I knew I wanted to do. So after that, when I went to a camp, I would be the first one on the court, trying to be as confident as possible.”
The next year she made the team.
Fournier is a quick study. She’s got a natural gift for the game and athleticism to match. She could have gone anywhere from South Carolina to UConn, but Fournier was taken by Duke on her first visit. She liked the idea of being able to play right away and develop through game action, rather than sitting on the bench as an underclassman. “I knew I could come here and right away I could go in and play how I know I can play,” she says.
Fournier is an instant impact-maker for the Blue Devils off the bench and a big part of the team’s No. 14 AP ranking. She has a nose for the ball and the ability to score almost at will around the rim. And if she doesn’t make her first attempt, Fournier is relentless in pursuing the rebound.
“She is definitely a force for us out there,” Lawson says. “She’s so productive. She is doing really well feeling her way out. Every player on our team remembers being a freshman and being put in challenging situations.”
There have definitely been highs and lows this season. In an 81-59 win over Virginia Tech on December 8, Fournier had her best game, finishing with 27 points and nine rebounds off the bench. Then, three games later against Boston College, she was once again Duke’s spark, quickly amassing 11 points in 11 minutes before she left the game after being hit in the head. Her status for Thursday’s big game at No. 19 North Carolina has not yet been determined.
“She’s got that tenacity not to back down from anyone,” assistant coach Tia Jackson says. “She’s got a fearlessness to her that’s pretty cool. It doesn’t matter shape or size, she’s ready to answer.”
There have been other times when Fournier looks very much like a freshman. In her first game at Duke, she fouled out after playing just 10 minutes. And in a loss to South Carolina on December 5, Fournier was swallowed by the Gamecocks’ long, athletic defenders, shooting just 1 of 4 for two points. But even in those moments, the potential and raw skills are glaringly obvious. On offense, Fournier moves to the rim like she has a magnet pulling her there and on defense her long limbs always seem to be in the right place at the right time. Everything else will come with time. And she finds the possibility of getting better every day exciting.
“There’s always something in basketball to get better at,” Fournier says. “There is no finished product, which I love.”
Fournier is “a freak of nature,” according to Jackson. Her ceiling is so high that her coaches don’t even know what her true potential is or when she will reach it. “By the time she graduates, I don’t think she will reach it,” Jackson says. “She’s going to get to the pros and shock people there too.”
Jackson and the rest of the Duke staff see Fournier as a player who can guard every position while also moving from just the four spot – where she plays now – to taking on multiple offensive positions, including running the offense. “In a perfect world, we will just build on her versatility so that she can be a phenomenal pro and hopefully represent Team Canada in the Olympics some day,” Jackson says.
Women’s basketball is having a moment in Canada. In 2023, Fournier’s home city of Toronto hosted the country’s first WNBA game, a sold out affair between the Chicago Sky and the Minnesota Lynx. The league did it again in 2024 when Canada-native Kia Nurse led her LA Sparks past the Seattle Storm in front of another sold-out crowd. Soon after, Toronto was awarded a WNBA expansion team, with the Toronto Tempo set to join the league in 2026. Fournier is one of several current college players who herald from Canada, including Michigan’s Syla Swords, Gonzaga’s Yvonne Ejim and Notre Dame’s Cassandre Prosper.
Fournier remembers when the Toronto Raptors won the NBA title in 2019. Her family watched it together on their living room couch, holding their collective breath as Kawhi Leonard’s final shot bounced around the rim and dropped through to win Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Fournier was too young to go out that night to celebrate, but her older sister Zadie did. When she came home, Zadie told a wide-eyed Toby all about the people high-fiving on the subway.
Now, that kind of thing is going to be possible in women’s professional basketball as well. “Watching it grow and having those other girls beside me (Swords and Prosper) and seeing what the future might hold for us is just amazing,” Fournier says.
She has her eyes on a WNBA career and a spot on the 2028 Olympic National team, but for now, Fournier is focused on the present. And like women’s basketball in Canada, women’s basketball at Duke is growing, too. The Blue Devils made the Sweet Sixteen last season, the first appearance in Lawson’s four-year tenure. Fournier is the kind of player who can make deeper tournament runs possible, while also sustaining long-term success. She joined sophomore Jadyn Donovan, the No. 3 player in the class of 2023 according to ESPN’s HoopGurlz, as highly-touted recruits. The Blue Devils have another five-star point guard, Emilee Skinner, coming in next season.
“Getting someone like Toby keeps us trending in the right direction,” Jackson says. “When those kids come in and prove they were worth their ranking, then anyone on the outside who is paying attention will see their development and the exciting style of basketball that we play.”
In high school, Fournier bought a whiteboard on which she used to write down all of her goals. They included averaging 20 points per game and making Canada’s u19 team, among others. As she got older, Fournier ditched the whiteboard and opted to make her goals mentally, but recently, she bought one again. She plans to write her goals there as a visual reminder of all the things she wants to do. Fournier has a history of rising to the occasion. She checked off plenty of goals in high school, and now, she’s ready for more. I have a lot of skills and a lot more to show people,” she says. “I want people to see that I’m a lot more than just a dunker.”
