City of Basketball Love

CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
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MANHEIM — The April live periods kept on trucking in Lancaster County, with a massive tournament taking place at Spooky Nook Sports — a combination of the first Girls’ Under Armour Association stop and the Select Events “Live at the Nook!” competition, with hundreds and hundreds of teams descending upon central Pennsylvania for three days of intense competition.

There were plenty of prospects to check in with. Here's the fifth part of our recruiting notebook, with interviews from Friday, Saturday and Sunday:

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More Coverage: Day 1 Standouts | Day 2 Standouts | Day 3 Standouts | Notebook (Pt. 1) | Notebook (Pt. 2) | Notebook (Pt. 3) | Notebook (Pt. 4) | Notebook (Pt. 5)

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Jasmine ‘Jazzy’ Davidson (2025 | Northwest Select 17U)

Davidson is a veteran on the 17U level.

The Clackamas (Ore.) sophomore is already on her third season of 17U hoops, first playing with the Select’s oldest group as an eighth grader; now she’s the closet thing you can get to a grizzled vet, and she’s not even in her final couple years of high school.

“Composure’s the biggest difference between each season, my composure,” she said. “Just being more comfortable on the court with older kids.”

The No. 1 prospect in the 2025 class according to ESPN’s HoopGurlz rankings, Davidson and the whole Northwest Select program made their GUAA debut in fine fashion, a high-level group that showed it can play with anybody around.

It helps having the 6-1 Davidson in the mix: an elite defender who can use her wingspan to bother everybody from ‘1’s to ‘5’s, she puts out great effort on that end of the floor, but it doesn’t seem to bother her on offense, where she can initiate sets or work as an off-ball scorer; she loves to operate in the mid-range, where she utilizes a turnaround jumper, but she’s also got great body control around the rim.

“I’m just trying to get better at really every aspect of my game,” she said. “Being more of a threat to the inside, going up stronger, getting stronger in general. Just being more efficient in general.”

Davidson had bundles of high-majors watching her Saturday afternoon, including South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, who was situated at center court as Davidson scored 20 points with seven rebounds, four assists and two blocks in an overtime loss to the Germantown Lady Panthers. 

Unsurprisingly she’s got well over 20 offers, the first of which coming before she was “13 or 14” years old, the 16-year-old a well-known commodity at this point. But now with two years of high school left — and some girls at her level don’t even wait that long; five girls in the HoopGurlz top 25 for her class are already committed — she’s starting to think a little bit more about her future home.

“I’md definitely starting to narrow down and, not talk to schools more seriously,” she said, “but just kind of [...] form closer bonds with the schools that I’m really interested in.”

Davidson said she’s only been to Oregon and Stanford so far, but wanted to start taking more visits this summer, saying she wanted to see “definitely UConn, definitely LSU, probably Stanford again.”

As for what she’s looking for in a program: “Definitely a good education, solid education, a great basketball program, obviously,” she said. “Good culture in the program. I wouldn’t say NIL would make or break whether I chose a program, but it would definitely help if a school had a strong NIL.” — Josh Verlin

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Elli Guiney (2024 | Arizona Elite GUAA 17U)
When the going got tough Saturday afternoon and Supreme Team’s pressure defense started to bother some of Arizona Elite’s other guards, the team turned to Guiney.

Guiney, a 5-11 guard from Millennium High School in Goodyear, Ariz., took it upon herself to get the ball past halfcourt once her team — which held leads of 18-7 at the end of the first quarter and 39-31 at the end of the third — allowed Supreme Team to tie it 52-52 by the end of regulation.

She showed her clutch gene in the overtime period by hitting two 3s — the only points Arizona Elite scored — to propel her team to a 58-54 victory.

“I’m a shooter,” Guiney said. “That’s usually my go-to.”

Spectators had no choice but to notice Guiney after the game. She rode a calm, unflashy game to the tune of 16 points in regulation but showed she was the alpha, able to come through when her number was called in the overtime period.

Guiney’s play won’t come to a surprise to those in Arizona; she’s won the state championship the past two years with Millennium and has been a starter since her freshman season.

She’s averaging 14.7 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.5 steals per game through three seasons and sits at 1,073 career points.

Millennium was runner-up this season in the state championship in the inaugural “Open Division” bracket, which the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) implemented to pit schools — regardless of classification — against each other in a 32-team bracket based on team ranking.

“We came up short at the end, but we were the first Open Division runner-up as a lower division school (5A),” she said. Our season was pretty good.”

Guiney, who has hit 104 career 3s, wants to improve her off-the-dribble shooting and work on getting a quicker release. She also mentioned wanting to be more physical in closeouts and when attacking the rim.

Playing in competition against some of the best talent in the country in GUAA events gives her the opportunity to do that. 

“It just takes the level of competition up a notch because everyone wants to prove that they put in the work and they’ve gotten better,” Guiney said after the win Saturday at Spooky Nook. “You’re going after the girl across from you and almost every team we’re going against plays a different style of basketball than we usually see in Arizona.

“It’s really fun to play some physical, East Coast ride-or-die type teams. And you know the college coaches being there only makes the stage bigger.”

The guard holds offers from Northern Arizona, Navy, Princeton, Southern Utah, UNLV, UC San Diego, Idaho, and Eastern Michigan.

“I haven’t made any decisions yet,” she said. “I think we’re going to start narrowing down after this tournament, see what the vibe in the room is, and then make some decisions.” — Sean McBryan

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Caitlin Kramer (2024 | Colorado Basketball Club 17U)
Kramer hails from cold Colorado, a state that made Spooky Nook’s location in Lancaster feel like a tropical island this past weekend.

“We got a lot of snow this year,” Kramer said. “We just got some before we left…in April. It’s crazy.”

The 6-3 wing from Air Academy High School in El Paso County has an offensive game that is anything but cold. Kramer has added to her polished post game with good ball handling, shooting and court vision skills. 

She took over a Friday evening game against Books and Basketball 17U after CBC’s double-digit lead was cut to one at the end of the third quarter. She finished with 10 points, many of which came in the second half, as CBC pulled away for a 49-38 victory.

Kramer is already the all-time leading scorer at her high school as she gears up for her senior season. She averaged 15.5 points as a freshman and boosted that to 19.5 and 26.5 in the next two seasons; she’s scored 1,428 career points including an absurd 47-point outing this Dec. in an 83-77 win.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know I was close [to breaking the school scoring record],” Kramer said. “I didn’t even know I did it until two games later and then they told me. I was like (yelps). But no, it was great.”

Fittingly, Kramer shares an identical first name with another offensive flamethrower who currently attends her dream school: Iowa.

“It’s one of my dream schools,” Kramer said. “I would love to go there.”

So far Kramer has offers from Air Force, Army, Fairfield, Navy, Northern Colorado, Pepperdine. 

All of Kramer’s offensive output doesn’t take away from the rest of her game; she’s energetic and long defensively, manning the top of CBC’s zone defense throughout the weekend. She’s averaged 2.6 steals and 1.8 blocks per game throughout her high school career.

She crashes the glass (7.8 per game) and wants to continue developing her guard skills to be able to play every position.

“I want to work on getting more confident ball handling, making quick passes, and just taking my time when I have the ball,” she said.

But the flamethrower scoring will need to continue if she wants to reach her next goal during the high school season.

“Hopefully I can hit 2,000 points,” Kramer said. “I already hit 1,000. So that’s my next goal.” — Sean McBryan

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Toby Nweke (2024 | Germantown Lady Panthers)

Nweke had plenty to feel good about after GLP beat Northwest Select in overtime in one of the weekend’s best games on Saturday, the 5-foot-10 guard contributing 17 points to the victory while playing tough defense as well.

That’s quite a difference from a week ago, when she was in a world of pain after dislocating her right shoulder in a warm-up tournament.

“I’ve been doing physical therapy all week just to try and be back, so I think even if i’m not at my full best, I’m just glad I was able to be part of the win today,” she said. 

It wasn’t clear at all she was coming off an injury, as she drilled a couple 3-pointers and was strong with the rock all game long, getting into the lane and scoring in the mid-range and around the rim. Now in her sixth summer with GLP, she was excited about the opportunity to finally play on the 17U circuit against some of the best prospects in the country.

“In 9th grade I was super-duper nervous going into every game, I’d be shaking, I’d have my mom tell me some words of encouragement before I go out there,” she said with a laugh. “Now I just tell myself that you just have to play, go play 110% and give all you can have, it’s like you’re only as good as your last game.”

The youngest of four siblings, Nweke is well on her way towards being the fourth of four to go play sports at the collegiate level. Her oldest brother, 6-7 forward Ike, played hoops at Columbia and just finished his graduate season at Quinnipiac. Her sister Chet, a 6-0 guard, just finished up her junior year at Princeton, while Odera is a senior at Yale, where he’s on the track team as a sprinter/long jumper.

Ivy League schools are recruiting Nweke, she said, as are Big Ten schools; she kept the particulars close to the vest, though she did say she’s visited Princeton and Yale. More visits, she said, are likely to come in June, after things have wrapped up in her junior year at Georgetown Visitation Prep (D.C.). Despite the family history, she said she’s not tied to the Ancient Eight.

“My parents have said this from the beginning that they don’t pressure me to go to an Ivy League at all, but it’s always there as an option,” she said. “I used to put a lot of pressure on myself when I was younger, that I had to go to an Ivy League…I just think it’s there as an option, but it’s just wherever I feel like I love the school and I feel like I’m going to be at the best when I’m playing.” — Josh Verlin

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Alexis Bordas (2025 | West Virginia Thunder GUAA 16U)

The lefty 5-9 guard from Wheeling Park won the West Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year Award following a sophomore season in which she averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 3.9 steals per game. 

“It was definitely a big honor to win that,” Bordas said. “We didn’t win the state championship, so for high school, that’s the biggest goal. For AAU, the goal is to win the Under Armour finals and just play with my team and hopefully we can all get better.”

Bordas already eclipsed the 1,000-point threshold and showed her smooth stroke from 3-point range Saturday at Spooky Nook.

Bordas scored 13 points and hit three 3s — two from NBA range — while also picking up five rebounds and two steals in the 60-48 win over Germantown Panthers.

The younger Bordas’ mom was a three-time all-state selection during her time playing high school basketball in West Virginia, which is where she got her shooting ability from.

“I kind of gained it from her,” Bordas said. “But I work on it every day.”

The shooting comes naturally and Bordas realizes the other parts of her game she needs to work on.

“Probably just my overall everything,” she said on what she wants to work on. “A little bit of everything, every game. Not just my shooting, but working on being able to score from all three levels.”

Bordas has the luxury of playing on the same AAU team with two athletic, fellow Division I recruit bigs in 6-2 Zaniah Zellous and 6-2 Aniya Trent, who can provide screens and rebounds to complement a sharpshooter.

“It’s so much fun,” Bordas said. “It just makes the game easier when you have so many good players around you. You have so many options, so many different ways to score, so many different defensive sets.”

Bordas has bragging rights over Zellous as they faced off during the high school season with Bordas’ Wheeling Park winning 64-37 over Zellous’ George Washington.

“I have one up on her,” Bordas said with a smile.

Bordas and Wheeling Park lost by four to Morgantown in the state championship game last season so they will be gunning for the title next year.

“We only lose one senior pretty much so we’ll be pretty much the same,” she said. “We usually make it to the tournament, but we hadn’t made it to the state finals in 20-something years. We haven’t won it since 1999 or something so it’s a big goal, like a big goal, for us to win it.”

Bordas recently picked up an offer from Duquesne and already secured offers from Youngstown State, Stetson, and Xavier. — Sean McBryan

Megan Sias (2024 | NJ Shoreshots 17U)
It’s safe to say the 6-2 forward from Toms River North is fully back from a torn ACL that forced her to sit out her entire sophomore campaign.

Sias averaged 20.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.3 steals and 1.8 blocks during her junior season as the Mariners went 21-5.

“It’s good,” Sias said of the injury. “I’m so lucky for my PT and my therapist. My knee hasn’t been bothering me.”

Sias got injured during the summer of her freshman year after averaging 10.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and over a steal and block per game.

The wing has the height and athleticism to bang down low, evident by her 10 points and six rebounds in a 52-38 victory over the Lady Runnin Rebels. Most of that production came in the second half as Sias’ play changed the trajectory of the game; Shoreshots trailed by one at halftime. 

“We really just needed to push the ball,” Sias said. “We’re really good in transition. We also looked for the backdoor and kept moving.”

Sias wants to continue expanding her backcourt game, which she handles more responsibility during the high school season with a bunch of talented guards on her AAU team.

“I want to keep improving my ball handling and then really just getting back out there because it’s been hard [rehabbing from the injury].”

Sias still wears a knee brace during games, the only visible side effect still remaining from an injury battled and conquered. 

“It’s just mental stuff now,” Sias said. “So I guess it’s going to be gradual. I’ll start taking it off at practice and then eventually games.” — Sean McBryan

Audrey Shindelar & Jayci Rath (2026 | Minnesota Fury GUAA 15U)
Two players garnering Division I interest that play on the same high school and AAU teams is typically equivalent with a high school powerhouse.

In the case of Audrey Shindelar, a 5-9 guard, and Jayci Rath, a 6-1 forward, who both play on Minnesota Fury’s 15Us and on Stewartville High, that isn’t the case.

Stewartville appeared in its first ever state tournament — girls or boys — this past season and made it all the way to the final before losing by six.

Leading scorer Haylie Strum (16.1 points per game) will graduate in a few months so it’ll be up to Shindelar, who averaged 9.5 points off the bench, and Rath, who was a starter and second on the team with 5.8 rebounds per game, to get the Tigers program its first state championship.

Playing together in AAU will help build each player’s individual game while also fostering chemistry for high school ball.

“We play really well together,” Rath said. “We’ve played together since second grade.”

“It’s a lot of fun and we play unselfishly,” Shindelar said. “We can grow together and get to be better teammates.”

The two have complimentary games. Shindelar is a sharpshooting guard with playmaking ability and long arms that disrupt defensively; Rath can bang down, step out to hit deep shots, and protect the rim.

“She sees the floor really well,” Shindelar said of Rath. “If I pass it in, she’s always looking out. Just like I drive and look to her.”

“She’s a really good passer and she always finds me when I’m open,” Rath said of Shindelar. “I try to do the same thing for her.”

Shindelar said she’s trying to get stronger physically to be able to attack the basket more. Rath wants to improve her speed and quickness, something she thinks playing on the GUAA circuit will help as she goes up against top guards in the country.

Stewartville has a third standout in the 2026 class in post Ella Theobald, who averaged 8.3 points and 6.6 rebounds during her freshman season. 

“I think we all knew we wanted to make it to states [last season],” Rath said. “I don’t think we expected getting to the championship game.”

The opportunity to make history and win the first state championship for their high school program is a real possibility as soon as next season.

Shindelar and Rath are both garnering Division I interest already, leaving open the possibility of playing together collegiately.

“I’d like to continue playing with her but whatever school fits me, whatever school fits her,” Rath, who is being courted by UW-Green Bay and South Dakota State, said.