2008-09 Top 100 High School Girl’s Prospects

By Kelvin Powell

The state of Texas is staking a claim as the most fertile of grounds for big-time high-school girls basketball and it’s doing it in a big way…a really big way. As in Houston’s Nimitz High’s 6-8 forward Brittany Griner leads a bevy of talented post players from the state of Texas. Griner, featured in the next issue of SLAM and discussed here on Slamonline last week by Aggrey, is the Preseason National Player of the Year according to Roundball Journal and gaining notoriety nationally (and internationally) for her array of YouTube highlight videos—highlights in which Griner is shown dunking in a variety of posterizing ways. Not to be out done is another Houston product, Dulles High’s Kelsey Bone. Bone is a 6-5 center who dominates in the low post but also has an improving jump shot and great ball-handling skills for someone her size. Griner and Bone are one and two, respectively, in the Class of ’09. Amazingly, Houston is not the only Texas city producing great players in this year’s class. In fact, five of this year’s top 20 players are from Texas, with Waco’s Cokie Reed (4), Diboli’s Nikki Green (9) and another H-Town player, Waltia Rolle, joining Griner (pictured below) and Bone. What is even more amazing about the state’s pedigree is that all of these players stand 6-5 or taller. And if you think any of this is an anomoly, think again. Houston’s Nneka Ogwumike was one of the top two or three players in America last year, and her younger sister Chiney is arguably the best junior in the class of 2010.

To see how we rank all these great Texas-based players, as well as the rest of the top 100, please check the rankings below and feel free to share your thoughts.

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Kelvin Powell is the National Prep Evaluator for the Roundball Journal—one of the nation’s leading prep scouting services. He also conducts national level prep tournaments and camps throughout the country. Powell is a member of the McDonald’s All-American Game Selection Committee and the Gatorade National and State Player of the Year Advisory Board.