Keyanna Harris is every bit the rising ninth grader.
"Don't you disrespect the glasses, Mr. Scott," she chides while mugging for the camera with her teammates wearing Buddy Holly-like 3D rims with the lenses popped out.
Just 15 and already one of the most coveted girls basketball talents in the country, Harris bristles at the mention of how the competitive recruiting landscape for younger girls is catching up with the boys.
"We're gonna make a statement," Harris said, supported by conspiratorial nods from her fellow 15-year-old All-Star teammates Raigyne Moncrief and Kai James. "I'm tired of everybody talking about the boys. When we play street players and all the boys are getting (recruiting) letters, we're better than those guys."
Having seen Harris, Moncrief and James and the rest of the Miami Suns' Team Fowles roll up a 20-point victory in the 15U championship game of the JumpOffPlus.com Elite 24 Summer Jam at Augusta State, there is no denying the advanced skill of these young girls. That's why you see coaches such as Tennessee's Pat Summitt, North Carolina's Sylvia Hatchell and Georgia's Andy Landers sitting in chairs scouting players who have yet to reach high school.
Harris and Moncrief have been getting letters since they were in middle school.
"That was like a year ago," said Moncrief as if it were a lifetime.
It has been a natural evolution of the women's game toward defining talent at a younger age. Hatchell has been coaching the Tar Heels for more than 25 years and already won more than 800 career games, and she's seen the recruiting process change before her eyes.
"Every year it gets more competitive and the players are getting better and better," said Hatchell. "We used to start sending letters and seeing these girls in high school. Now we're doing it when they're in seventh and eighth grade. And they've had more opportunities to play in events like this."
This week the biggest names in women's collegiate basketball have descended upon the Augusta area to witness 56 All-Star teams in action at competing events on both sides of the Savannah River. The Elite 24 Summer Jam at Augusta State and the Nike Nationals at North Augusta's Riverview Park Activities Center have become what the Peach Jam is for the boys.
The girls are digging the attention.
"It motivates us," said Moncrief. "I like it because we get to play in front of bigger college coaches. High school basketball you don't get noticed. This is where you get noticed."
The grind of a full summer schedule and the recruiting attention that comes with it doesn't weigh on them.
"It can't be exhausting if you love it," said James, already 6-foot-5 and getting major notice despite playing competitive basketball for only a year.
While coaches hovered around the 16U championship game that featured coveted stars Morgan Jones, of Orlando, Fla., and Brianna Butler, of Philadelphia, the younger bracket on the adjacent court was more loaded with prospects. The losing Carolina All- Stars from Raleigh-Durham featured lanky twins Bria and Brianna Day, a combination package any college program would be eager to catch.
But it was the trio of charismatic 15-year-olds from South Florida that drew the spotlight on and off the court. Their first team championship left them as giddy as you would expect school girls to be and displaying more postgame personality than a gym full of boys ever showed.
"I want to be in Georgia," said Harris with a desire Bulldogs coach Landers would be happy to hear. Her attraction to the area other than the storied Georgia program is that her father lives in Camilla, Ga.
Harris and James will play together at Dwyer High School in the fall, but the wiry Harris teased James about waiting too long to decide to play and leaving her fending for herself on the middle school team.
"We could have been like Kobe and Shaq," she said.
James, who has brothers as big as 6-10, had to be convinced to take up the sport.
"I don't know if I was scared of being rejected," she said of the thing she now does often in the paint.
These young girls know what's at stake.
They've seen older siblings fail to make the academic and athletic commitments required to earn the rewards that their talent can bring.
"My older sister tells me, 'You can write your ticket,'" Harris said. "I've learned from her mistakes."
And the ticket Harris hopes to write?
"I want to play overseas," she said. "I want to go to Paris and wear cool hats and be like, 'Bon jour.'"
Moncrief and James shake their heads at their friend.
"So stupid, girl," Moncrief said.
Just a few 15-year-old ballers with the whole world in front of them.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
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