STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
China Crosby
BROOKLYN, N.Y. - You know you had a good summer when you come home, as China Crosby did last month, and your mother says, "I opened one of your letters."
Crosby replied, "One of ... ?"
China Crosby
Check your room, her mother said.
Piled on the bed of the junior at the Manhattan Center were letters, dozens of them, from colleges.
"It was pretty exciting," said Crosby, who is ranked No. 24 overall in the HoopGurlz.com Super Sixty for the 2009 class.
The 5-foot-6 point guard had a great summer, showing off super quickness, great moves off the dribble, the ability to deliver off penetration, be disruptive on defense and score off the dribble. Crosby has been selected to play for the Boros in the Metro Classic on Oct. 21. She says she plans to entertain - and win the all-star game between New York City stars and a team from Long Island.
"It's going to be jam-packed," Crosby said of the Christ the King gym in Middle Village, N.Y. "It's a chance to show a lot of people what you can do."
In terms of colleges, Crosby is interested in Duke, Maryland, Penn State and Virginia. Of course, the way she and her mail is going, the list could expand.
RIM SHOTS
One of our favorite New York-area players in the 2008 class is Alexa Roche, who we ranked 47th overall, which is testimony to the kind of heart she plays with. See, Roche only is 5-11, which you almost forget while watching her play because she is a bruising, explosive inside scorer, who also has skills to take her opponents away from the cup. There were times when her club team, Exodus NYC, hummed offensively by isolating her and Samantha Prahalis on one side and dared someone to stop them. Roche last week committed to Georgetown, selecting the Hoyas over Syracuse. She said academics were critical in her decision. She carries a B-plus average at St. Michael in Brooklyn, and plans to study business. ... Roche's club teammate, Shakeya Leary, a 6-3 forward with a unique combination of skills, just took the SAT last Saturday, so she hasn't scheduled any visits yet. When she qualifies, Leary wants to check out Seton Hall, Syracuse and Temple. ... Leary has a young teammate at Murry Bergtraum in lower Manhattan who is high on our must-see- again list - Doris Ortega, a guard in the 2010 class. She plays bigger than her listed 5-10, which goes to explain how she helped lead undersized New Heights to the 14U AAU National Championship last summer. Ortega is solidly built, very active on the glass and is great at finishing in traffic. She can hit the perimeter shot, but shots the ball across her body, an idiosyncrasy she still has time to fix.
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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 [1]), Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Photoshop Professionals, National Press Photographers Association and Online News Association. 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 [1]. Glenn can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com [2].
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