NAISMITH HS WATCH LIST: Dodson, Williams candidates for high school POY

gostanford.com, November 17, 2016

Stanford signees Maya Dodson and Kiana Williams are on the Atlanta Tipoff Club's 50-person, preseason watch list for the 2017 Naismith Trophy High School Girls' Player of the Year award. The midseason team, consisting of 25 candidates, will be announced on Jan. 12, 2017.
 
Dodson and Williams make up half of the Cardinal's celebrated 2017 recruiting class which, along with Estella Moschkau and Alyssa Jerome, is ranked fifth by espnW HoopGurlz.
 
Dodson, a 6-foot-3 wing, is a five-star talent and the No. 11 prospect in the espnW HoopGurlz Top 100. A back-to-back state title winner at St. Francis High School in Alpharetta, Ga., Dodson averaged 13 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two steals and three blocks per game as a junior and was named Georgia's Class A player of the year.
 
This past summer, she won a bronze medal with Team USA at the FIBA U17 World Championship for Women in Zaragoza, Spain, making the 12-person roster out of a pool of 139 trial invitees. Dodson started all seven games and averaged 7.1 points and 5.3 rebounds, including scoring 12 and adding seven boards in the team's 65-50 win over China to secure third place.
 
Kiana Williams, a 5-foot-7, five-star point guard from San Antonio, Texas, is the No. 8 prospect in the espnW HoopGurlz Top 100 and Stanford's first top-10 recruit since Chiney Ogwumike signed as the top player in the country in Nov. 2009.
 
A dynamic leader with a powerful scoring punch, Williams averaged 17 points, five rebounds, four assists and 2.5 steals per game as a junior for Karen Wagner High School last season. She was a first-team all-state selection for the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches as well as the Texas Girls Coaches Association.
 
Ogwumike is Stanford's only previous winner of the Naismith Trophy High School Girls' Player of the Year award, taking home the honor in 2010.

Toronto basketball prodigy sets her sights on the Olympics and beyond: Alyssa Jerome will play basketball for Stanford University next year

Alyssa Jerome was introduced to basketball in elementary school. (CBC)

Kate McGillivray, CBC News, November 13, 2016

Alyssa Jerome has only been playing basketball for six years, but she's already making waves in Canada and abroad.

The 16-year-old Harbord Collegiate Institute student will play at Stanford University next year after being recruited by its basketball program. 

"I'm really excited, going to such an amazing school," she said.

For the last two years, Jerome has played forward on the Canadian national team, leading it to its first gold medal last year at the Federation of International Basketball Associations (FIBA) Americas championships.

Jerome gives the Harbord junior girls' basketball team a pep talk before a game. (CBC)

This past September, she decided to take on a new role: coach of Harbord's junior girls' team.

"It's been really fun," she said. "Definitely a different view on basketball."

Jerome is clear-eyed about her goals going forward.

"I want to go to the Olympics and represent Canada."

Jerome is also focused on academics. She told CBC News her choice of Stanford was influenced as much by its strong academic reputation as its basketball team. 

"There's a life after basketball," she said. "I'm very interested in the sciences, so maybe a career in the medical field." 

Jerome coaches from the sidelines in the Harbord Collegiate Institute gym. (CBC)

Stanford women's basketball is catching fire on the recruiting trail

There are plenty of things to like about the way Tara VanDerveer's program is shaping up

John Loop, ruleoftree.com, October 28, 2016

With college basketball season just under a month away, the Stanford women are training hard to build on a successful 2015-16 season which ended in a disappointing Elite Eight loss to Pac-12 rival Washington in last year's NCAA Tournament.

Still, head coach Tara VanDerveer continues to build momentum through top-tier commits from the 2017 and 2018 recruiting classes who will have the opportunity to come in and have an immediate impact. VanDerveer's recruiting efforts have finally begun to pay off in a big way, as the Cardinal have received commitments from six of the nation's top players.

The excitement began when Wagner High School (San Antonio, TX) five-star point guard Kiana Williams made her choice official on October 8. Williams selected the Cardinal over fellow Pac-12 member Oregon State and the top team in her home state, the Baylor Bears.

The number eight overall prospect in the 2017 class, Williams provides a scoring mentality as a slashing guard who has explosive speed off the dribble, her greatest strength among a list of many. Her mid-range game is superb, and her court awareness is off the charts.

A day after Williams made her decision, Estella Moschkau, a senior forward with a wicked perimeter game from Edgewood High School in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, also chose Stanford. The Cardinal won out over the in-state Badgers and the University of Oklahoma.

Standing at 6-foot-2, Moschkau is money from downtown (she shot 34.6% on three-point field goal attempts last season for the Crusaders), which makes it very hard to defend if you factor in her size. Although labelled by ESPN as the ninth-best wing player in the country (No. 44 overall), she brings mid-range accuracy and shifty post play to her game too. Her selflessness as a teammate feeds her knack for smart passing, and Edgewood coach Lora Staveness says Moschkau's number one goal is always "giving an assist."

A few days later, on October 11, the Cardinal got more good news, as 2017 Canadian forward Alyssa Jerome pledged her loyalty to Stanford.

Jerome is widely considered Canada's top young women's basketball star of the last decade. She became a FIBA U16 national champion in 2015 and FIBA U18 runner up to the US team this past summer, and was the team's leading scorer and rebounder in both international tournaments.

A relentless rebounder and impeccable spot-up shooter, Jerome is a 6-foot-2 forward with length and speed that makes her very dangerous in the open floor. Like Moschkau, the Toronto native's toughness all but ensures she is never one to shy away from contact, whether on offense or defense.

The last domino to fall in the 2017 class came last Tuesday, when Maya Dodson, the number 11 player in the country dubbed Palo Alto as her future home. Dodson announced her choice in this video, posted on Twitter.

Dodson, a 6-foot-3 wing for St. Francis High School, led her team to back-to-back Georgia state titles, averaging 13 points, seven rebounds, two assists in her junior season. Lost in her high offensive production is Maya's stifling defensive ability, averaging two steals and three blocks per game last season as well.

Future Cardinal's Signing Moments

Kiana Williams shows off her national letter of intent to Stanford. 

Wagner's Kiana Williams signs with Stanford.

Stanford signee Maya Dodson.

CARDINAL FOURTUNE

gostanford.com, November 9, 2016

STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford's Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball Tara VanDerveer announced the signings of four of North America's best players to National Letters of Intent on Wednesday. Maya Dodson (Alpharetta, Ga./St. Francis), Alyssa Jerome(Toronto, Ontario, Canada/Harbord Collegiate), Estella Moschkau (Mount Horeb, Wisc./Edgewood) and Kiana Williams (San Antonio, Texas/Karen Wagner) will join the Cardinal ahead of the 2017-18 campaign.

Stanford's four-member recruiting haul is one of the nation's strongest, collectively rated No. 2 by espnW HoopGurlz and No.6 by Prospects Nation.

"We are absolutely thrilled," VanDerveer said. "We're not just signing a class of talented players, but we are really excited about the character of the people. They're winners in all aspects, including in the classroom and on the court. They're very humble and hard-working and that's what we need. We need them to come in and contribute and we are confident that they will."

The four are impressive additions to a program which has won a pair of national championships, been to 29 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, advanced to the Elite Eight in 10 of the past 13 seasons, won at least 25 games for 15 straight years and claimed a combined 34 Pac-12 regular season and conference championships.

"Stanford is beautiful and the academic experience is unmatched," VanDerveer added. "Those are things they can learn about, but [when they were here] they could feel it. They want to be teammates with our freshmen, sophomores and juniors and the seniors showed just how much they love this university. [Our current players] showed that they want to be a great team and they understand that to be a great team you must have great teammates."
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