T-exodus?

By Glenn Nelson
HoopGurlz Publisher
Posted Tue, 11/20/2007 - 10:50 Nneka Ogwumike's commitment to Stanford has Texans wondering why all the elite players seem to be leaving.

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STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON

Nneka Ogwumike's dramatic commitment to Stanford on Monday left Krystal Parnell of Brooklyn, N.Y., as the only uncommitted member of the HoopGurlz Hundred for 2008. It also posed a major question in Ogwumike's home state of Texas.

Why did all the top prospects leave?

As Kelsey Bone, the No. 1 ranked player in 2009, told HoopGurlz recently, "It's been said that the kids in Texas stay in Texas, but the last couple of classes, they've been leaving."

Bone, by the way, lives in the Houston area.

There does appear to have been a Texas two-step (play, then leave) taking place in the 2008 class. Six Texans ranked in the HoopGurlz Hundred - No. 6 Nneka Ogwumike of Cypress, No. 9 Brooklyn Pope of Dallas, No. 17 Destini Hughes of Fort Worth, No. 28 Briana Gilbreath of Katy, No. 38 Whitney Hand of Fort Worth and No. 72 Jasmine Malone of San Antonio - signed out of state. Only one top 100 Texan, No. 34 Adaora Elonu of Houston, stayed within the Lone Star State boundaries.

Gail Goestenkors snapped up two HoopGurlz Hundred prospects for Texas, though both were from out of state, and Kim Mulkey, just three years removed from a national championship, was shut out at Baylor, as was Texas Tech's Kristy Curry.

Fans and the media are sounding the alarms. But the apparent T-exodus may be a one-year wonder. The top of the 2009 is dominated by Texans, starting with Bone, and already one of the elites, No. 2 Brittany Griner, has pledged in-state, to Mulkey at Baylor. So has 2010 wunderkind Odyssey Sims.

Last year, only two Texans in HoopGurlz Hundred - No. 11 Stefanie Gilbreath (USC) and No. 31 Karima Christmas (Duke) - signed out of state. No. 18 Sydney Colson (Texas A&M), No. 26 Rachel Rentschler (Texas), No. 40 Kathleen Nash (Texas) and No. 73 ReShundra Jackson (SMU) stayed home. The year before, Texas had two Top 10 prospects and both - No. 4 Brittainey Raven (Texas) and No. 9 Jordan Murphree (Texas Tech) - signed in-state.

Wither the class of 2008? Circumstances claimed some of the Texans, for sure. Sisters often can represent an unspoken package deal, accounting for Briana Gilbreath going to USC, where her older sister, Stefanie, signed the year before. It's difficult to pass up a Stanford education for an academic high-achiever such as Ogwumike. Hughes got caught up in the Van Chancellor vortex at LSU and wanted a chance to do something first that already had occurred at Baylor - winning a national title.

Some are suggesting a "Griner Effect" at Baylor, and the fact that the Bears seemed to be the runners-up for so many elite prospects (Ogwumike, Pope, Hughes, plus Jasmine Dixon and Nikki Speed of California) has been hard for many Texans to swallow. The fact that Griner is an 2009 may indeed create an illusion that Baylor success is in the future, but it's like more than her being a game-changing player suggests a team that will revolve around an inside attack. To wit, Dixon, Pope and Speed went to Rutgers, which will not have a feature post scorer during most of their time there, and should employ a more mobile attack that caters to their games.

Many expected Goestenkors to throw a fence around the state, but discounted her late recruiting start. As did her former assistant, Tia Jackson, now at Washington, Goestenkors continued recruiting many of the players she started wooing to Duke. In fact, for a while, Joanne P. McCallie seemed to be suffering a "Gail Effect" as several top prospects cooled off Duke after Goestenkors went to Texas. McCallie rebounded nicely with a class that looks like it will finish in the top five nationally.

Texas also seems to be one of the major battle grounds for club teams and sneaker interests. It seems too huge, geographically, to stage a state-wide elite team, though talk persists of a "super team" emerging with the likes of Bone and Griner, Sims and perhaps the younger Ogwumike, Chiney, uniting for Texas pride. That seems unlikely. The competitive landscape has allowed regionalized teams, such as West Coast Elite, to swoop in and pick off top recruits (Bone and the Gilbreath sisters).

Similar circumstances made 2007 a good year in Washington state ... to leave. Eight of 12 highly regarded Washington recruits signed out of state, including the top four nationally ranked prospects - Angie Bjorklund, Alex Montgomery, Regina Rogers and Christina Nzekwe. That class may have been once-in-a-lifetime good for Washington, but Texas, with its mother lode of athletes, is a permanent, major player in the girl's and women's games.

With several components in flux, it will be a roller coaster the next few years for Texans. While they will cheer that a favorite daughter such as Brittany Griner stays home, it may mourn the times if, say, the highly regarded younger Ogwumike joins her sister at Stanford. One thing about the Lone Star State will remain constant through it all: Its citizens will not remain quiet about whatever happens.

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Glenn Nelson is the founder and publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He is a member of the McDonald's All-American Selection Committee and SportsShooter.com (Click for Porfolio), Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Photoshop Professionals, National Press Photographers Association, Online News Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Glenn also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams and previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). For more on Glenn's World, click here. Glenn can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.

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