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Prospect Watch - Oct. 27

Jantel Lavender

By Glenn Nelson
HoopGurlz Publisher
Oct 27, 2006

Jay-Bee Bethea of the All-Ohio club team has coached No. 1 ranked centers in consecutive classes, and it's no coincidence for this professor of the post.

STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON

Some would say that Jay-Bee Bethea is the luckiest man in girl's club basketball. Earlier this week, the No. 1 center in the 2007 class, Jantel Lavender, No. 3 in the HoopGurlz National Hot 100, committed to Ohio State. Lavender was Bethea's starting center for All-Ohio Black.

Which isn't to say his cupboard will be bare next spring and summer. Starting at center for All-Ohio Black then still will be the No. 1 center in her class, Ayana Dunning, who also is No. 3 overall in 2008, according to HoopGurlz.

Ayana Dunning

Their exact placement in national rankings may be a coincidence, but the fact that two centers of their caliber have played for the same program cannot be. After all, Lavender and Dunning are good for many of the same reasons. They both have excellent footwork, a similar assortment of moves and counters, a rare ability (for young posts) to pass out of double teams and the ability to pass and shoot from the high post.

We asked Bethea what he considered the most important part of developing young post players.

"You can't be in a hurry," he said, agreeing with conventional wisdom among most coaches that inside players, mostly because they are growing into their bodies and minds, take the longest to develop.

Bethea, who played professionally overseas, says he only will place younger players on his top team, the Black team, if, like Dunning, they are good enough to start.

"I've had players who have been good enough to be on the Black team," he said, "but why play second string on the older team, when you could be starting, playing all the time and getting better?"

Lest anyone thinks Bethea's string is about to run out with Dunning, his Red team won several events last summer, led by Angela Groves, a 6-2 power forward from Cleveland, Ohio, and Kate Popovec, a 6-4 center out of Canton. All-Ohio also has three 2009 players, Kendall Hackney of Cincinnati, Sarah Hammond of Millersburg and Angela Radloff of Cleveland, who were listed at 6-2.

"I've got some young players," Bethea said, " that are going to make people say, 'Wow!' "

No doubt.

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Rim Shots

The next highest-ranked commitment will be from No. 8 Vicki Baugh of Sacramento, Calif., who is taking her last official visit, to LSU, this weekend. She already has tripped to

Vicki Baugh

Cal, Tennessee, Oklahoma and UCLA. James Hale of SoonersIllustrated.com asked Baugh how the schools stacked up. "They are all different," she said. "I haven’t been to LSU yet, but Oklahoma is kind of similar to Tennessee because people are involved with the basketball program. That is a big difference from schools in California as the fan support is so much greater. Support from the administration and fan support is a big deal to me.” ... Chynna Bozeman, a 5-9 guard from Reynoldsburg, Ohio, verballed to Moorehead State. A three-star combo guard by HoopGurlz, Bozeman does a lot of things nicely, including knocking down open jumpers off kick outs from the post. ... Jori Davis, a 5-10 guard from Rochester, N.Y., has committed to Indiana. Davis averaged 23.4 points last season for Athena-Greece High School, was a third-team, all-state selection in New York, as well as sectional player of the year and all-area. She scores and rebounds, runs the floor well and finishes with authority. ... Whitney Hood, a 6-3 center out of Meridian, Miss., has committed to Clemson. ... Taryn Russ, a 5-8 guard out of Winchest, Va., has committed to North Carolina AT&T, making her the first girl's basketball player from John Handley High School to play Division I. Russ is third on Handley's all-time scoring list with 1,284 career points and last season averaged 20.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, 5.2 steals and 4.9 assists.

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Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com and the editor-in-chief of Scout Media (www.Scout.com), an online sports network and magazine-publishing company and subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media. Glenn also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girls basketball teams. He previously was a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several national magazines and books. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). He can be reached at hoopgurlz@comcast.net.