City of Basketball Love

By CoBL Staff
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PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The Blue Star High School Invitational Showcase tipped off Sunday at Jefferson University, bringing together a strong field of girls basketball programs for a full day of high-level matchups. With teams from across the region sharing the floor, the event featured an array of players with notable college potential.

Here is the first of our recruiting notebooks from the event:

Taylor Brown (2027 | Long Island Lutheran, NY)

The Long Island Lutheran guard has been tested all her life, and the results are showing.

The game of basketball has always been a part of Taylor Brown’s life, but she’s had a different experience than the usual rising girls basketball star.

“Growing up, I’ve always been around the sport,” Brown said. “My older brother played and my dad was a high school coach (Abraham Lincoln High School) and my dad’s team that he coached back then was very good, so they were always in the gym. I grew up basically in the gym all the time – I started playing in an all-boys league with my little brother and from there, I just fell in love with the game.

With Brown’s love for basketball increasing, her father stepped down from his head coaching job to focus on training her.

“Once I wanted to take basketball seriously, [my dad] stepped down from the varsity position so he could have more time with me and train me, since I really wanted to go to the next level with this.”

Since then, Brown has had quite the high school career to date. The junior made a state championship with Ursuline (Del.) in 8th grade and won one in 9th grade before transferring to LuHi, where she’s received national honors such as a Naismith All-American Underclassmen Honorable Mention selection and has scored over 1,000 points.

She’s picked up 30+ offers from schools across the country and is being heavily recruited by Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State, Florida State, Louisville, and Arizona State. She’s taken visits to Georgia Tech, Auburn, Florida State, Penn State, Michigan, and Michigan State.

Brown is paying close attention to the guard situation at the schools that she is considering, and if she has the opportunity to prove herself in practice for minutes. She wants to have a good relationship with the coaching staff and is looking for a nice campus with good dorm situations and living conditions.

In terms of how she wants to be used, Brown is looking at how the schools play their small guards and how many guards they play at a time. A relationship with the point guard is of importance as well, as she will play as one in college.

The guard is eyeing a decision before the end of 2026 and plans to take a few more visits in the fall of this year. – Evan Hartenstein

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Grace Nasr (2027 | Academy of Notre Dame)

The Irish’s 6-foot-3 junior center has received a wealth of college attention, getting offers from Princeton, Penn, Drexel, St. Joe’s, Army, Navy, American, Lafayette, Lehigh and Bucknell, and now more recently, Richmond has crept into her recruiting picture, along with Davidson and Holy Cross a few times.

Nasr, who is averaging 12 points and 10 rebounds a game this season, is willing to be patient and looking at a late spring, possibly early summer decision, and without a doubt before her senior season. Nasr, whose parents are doctors, is looking at a high-academic school, visiting Penn, Princeton, West Point, Drexel, Bucknell, Lafayette and St. Joe’s.

“Academics are super important to me and all of the schools that I am talking to are high academic schools,” said Nasr, who carries a weighted 4.2 GPA at Notre Dame. “I want to also play high-level basketball, and most of the schools are within a good distance to where I live in Delaware County.

“We’re getting to start (Inter-Academic) league play and this season has definitely been tough, tougher than in past years personally and as a team. We upped the intensity of the schedule, and we’re right now dealing with a three-game losing streak (along with Cardinal O’Hara and Upper Dublin). We are definitely in a rut as a team, and we will need to come together more as a team.”

This is a big season for Nasr and Notre Dame. The Irish are going for the three-peat as Inter-Ac champs, after sharing the Inter-Ac title with Germantown Academy and Penn Charter in 2024, the Irish first Inter-Ac title since 1999, before winning the league crown outright in 2025.

Nasr is going to be a big part of this push.

Presently, the Irish are in the throes of a three-game losing streak, after dropping a 50-40 loss to Paul VI (Va.) on Sunday in the Blue Star Invitational at Jefferson. After a slow start, Nasr did well, scoring a team-high 9 points, with 8 rebounds and two blocked shots. Nasr had one great move midway through the second quarter, when she grabbed a pass inside, saw her defender over committed to one side to stop her, and blew by her for a layup.

Notre Dame is 6-4 overall, though enters the Inter-Ac opener against Episcopal Academy on Tuesday after losing to state title contenders Upper Dublin and Cardinal O’Hara, and Virginia state champion Paul VI.

That was on Nasr’s mind.

“I want a little more on myself, especially after spraining my knee this summer,” Nasr said. “It feels good now. I’ve been working on my perimeter game and trying to expand the post.”

Irish coach Terry Mancini says Nasr is probably the best passer on the team. She comes with an obvious high IQ on and off the court, and is going to be a key cog in Notre Dame three-peating.

“It is a shame Grace hurt her leg this summer, which was a setback for her,” Mancini said. “I think she is rounding back to who she was before she got hurt, shape wise, and basketball wise. She will not have a problem at all going to any college she wants to go to, and we knew Paul VI was a really tough team. We start Inter-Ac play on Tuesday, and we are looking forward to it. We are looking to repeat as outright champions again.

“That’s our goal, and we are still trying to figure out our rotation.”

In an impressive display of endurance, Riley and Finley Davis played a game for Notre Dame’s lacrosse team at 7 a.m. Sunday morning at Spooky Nook in Manheim, before driving down to Jefferson to play 11 a.m. Sunday morning against Paul VI. – Joseph Santoliquito

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Brigidanne Donahue (2027) & Catie Doogan (2028 | Cardinal O’Hara)

When Cardinal O’Hara’s season ended in the PIAA Class 6A quarterfinals last year, the Lions knew they had a lot of potential still to tap into with their returning group.

So far this season, O’Hara’s juniors and sophomores are showing that potential in some pretty tangible ways. Sunday, after falling behind by nine points in the second quarter to New Jersey powerhouse Rutgers Prep, the Lions buckled down and turned the tables on the Argonauts in a 52-42 that moved O’Hara to 9-0 on the season.

“They’re a New Jersey team, a tough team and I thought it was a good challenge for us,” O’Hara junior Brigidanne Donahue said. “Having this game going into PCL play, it was a good test for us to see where we’re at and we still can get so much better.”

Sophomore Catie Doogan came through as well on Sunday. The guard posted 14 points and shot an efficient 4-of-6 from the three-point line while also adding two assists, a block and a steal defensively.

Playing against a Rutgers Prep team that had a good mix of size, athletes and physicality on a roster with a couple Division I commits and a few more prospects behind them was a solid warm-up with a slate of crucial PCL games coming up in the next two weeks.

“It helped us with our defense,” Doogan said. “We know we have to box out and play tough and that’s something that gets us ready for our big league games.” 

Donahue, a 5-foot-9 guard who can play the point or off the ball, has been lights-out to start the season and added 10 points to the cause on Sunday. She had a terrific spring and summer playing for the Comets 16U GUAA team that led to a flurry of college offers including La Salle, Drexel, Penn, Lehigh, Manhattan, Kent State, Navy, Lafayette and Colgate with plenty more watching closely.

The junior said she hasn’t much on that front in terms of new offers, with things “holding steady” but she has definitely felt the confidence boost from her work paying off.

“It’s a cool experience,” Donahue said. “I’m just taking it all in, not everyone gets to experience it but I’m just focused on getting on the court and playing with my team.”

Doogan can say the same with a pretty similar level of confidence. The sophomore guard was a rotation player last season then also put together a really strong few months with the Comets 15U GUAA team. That led to her first Division I offer and like her teammates, more colleges tuning in.

Doogan also said things have been pretty much the same on that end, but like Donahue, was impressed by the overall raise in her teammate’s confidence and play when the group got back together this fall.

“In open gyms we saw it,” Donahue said. “We saw how much better everyone had gotten and that gave us a bunch of confidence to go out, work hard and continue to get better.”

It’s not just Donahue and Doogan. Megan Rullo has looked sharp in her return after missing last season with an ACL injury, scoring 15 points on Sunday, junior Leah Hudak has played at a high level coming off a good summer of her own, freshman Liv Craft is finding her way with the starters and juniors Carly Wakefield, Brezhae Davis and Penny Miller have formed a nice bench unit.

“We’ve come out hard, there’s still so much room for improvement but we’re a tall, athletic, tough team and today showed how tough we really are,” Donahue said.

“Everyone plays hard,” Doogan added. “Each night, anyone can step up and play a big role, so it’s nice to know that we have that.” -- Andrew Robinson

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Jo Owens (2027 | Germantown Academy)

The thought of “Jo Owens: College basketball player” wasn’t one that existed just a few years ago.

It’s a testament to the work the 6-foot-2 Owens has put in that it’s now not only a thought but one getting closer and closer to reality. Owens has taken a lot of strides in her game the last two years and the GA junior continues to show facets of a set of skills that college programs are taking note of.

“If I’m being honest, playing in college wasn’t even a thought that crossed my mind until freshman year AAU season,” Owens said. “I thought ‘ok, people on my team are doing this, can I do this too?’ I think I realized it was possible that freshman year summer.”

Owens at the moment has one Division I offer from Akron but she’s heard from other college programs and is hopeful more will follow if she continues to put out strong performances. The forward, like most of her teammates on the Comets 16U GUAA team, had a strong showing this summer with plenty of college coaches watching.

Sunday, in a tough loss to South Bronx Prep, Owens was a catalyst defensively for GA. She got the Patriots’ press going and was an irritant on inbound plays, lining up a shoe length away from the inbounder and using every bit of her height and length to tip and disrupt a few passes into turnovers.

Defensively, she can block shots and rebound but Owens has gotten more confident on the offensive end and can handle the ball. She’s able to play with another true post or in a more wing-oriented lineup depending on what Germantown Academy wants to do.

The thought of being a college basketball player is now one Owens wants to make a reality and she’s eager to see what kind of opportunities come her way to try and make that happen.

“It’s not even all on the court,” Owens said. “I want to work harder in the weight room, on my conditioning, all that kind of stuff. Whatever it can be to help me become the best player I can be.” -- Andrew Robinson