Prospect Watch - 11/2

STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON

Glory Johnson, Ayana Dunning, Liz Lay, Nneka Ogwumike and Cierra Bravard

We've been talking about Fab Fives lately, and here is another. They are the top five uncommitted players left in the 2008 class. They all make their biggest impact inside the paint and they're all franchise-type players.

3. Glory Johnson, Knoxville, Tenn: If Pat Summitt can keep Johnson from crossing the state line, the Lady Vols will have a spectacular recruiting class, the likes of which would be difficult to replicate in any other year. Johnson would give Tennessee three prospects in the top 10 and five in the top 20. That's nasty! On the other hand, Johnson plays a spot that can be filled by Alicia Manning or, even, Amber Gray in this class and Vicki Baugh in the previous. Plus, I've always had the impression that she wants to do differently than everyone else expects. I've had this feeling for a while that she'll go to North Carolina.

Glory Johnson at Nike Skills

6. Nneka Ogwumike, Cy-Fair, Texas: Academics is an extremely important factor here, which led me to believe that Stanford was the leader. The fact that she didn't commit there on her visit leads me to second-guess that intuition a little, though I also do believe Ogwumike is one to totally think through a life decision as major as this one. If she went to Duke, coach Joanne McCallie's first recruiting class for the Blue Devils, with point guard Shay Selby and extraordinary wing Kathleen Sheer already in hand, would be a great one. On the other hand, Baylor has as good a shot as any.

RIM SHOTS

Kirsten Tilleman

One of the more extraordinary athletes in the entire country, Kirsten Tilleman of Bozeman, Mont., has committed to Oregon State. During her junior season, the 6-1 wing earned Gatorade Player of the Year honors in Montana - in both basketball and soccer - and had a hand in four state championships - soccer, basketball, triple jump (where she is the three-time defending champion) and 4x400 relay. Oh yeah, she's also a standout performer in softball. Tilleman is the fourth player from her club team, Big Sky Hoops, to commit to a Division I program. The others are Ashley Ferta and Ali Hurley (Montana) and Jenni Gurten (Idaho State). Big Sky Hoops also is home to Joslyn Tinkle, ranked No. 13 overall in the HoopGurlz Super Sixty for 2009. ... Brittany Wilson of Riverside, R.I., No. 98 in the HoopGurlz Hundred for 2008, has committed to Northeastern. Her St. Mary's Academy teammate Kashaia Cannon, a 5-7 point guard, also has verballed to Northeastern. Wilson, a slinky, 5-9 guard was a first-team, all-state choice as a junior. ... Meredith Ward, a strong, 5-8 point guard who was Gatorade Player of the Year in Rhode Island, has pledged to Holy Cross. Ward averaged veraged 24.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.6 steals as a junior for Westerly High. ... Jo Niquia Guilford, an explosive scoring guard at Wilson High in Chesapeake, Va., has committed to Old Dominion. The 5-10 Guilford averaged 27 points as a junior and was Portsmouth Female Athlete of the Year. ... Aishah Sutherland, a 6-2 forward out of Perris, Calif., has chosen Kansas over Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon, Oregon State and South Carolina. Sutherland averaged 15 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and two steals as a junior.

Yvonne Anderson

Some already are getting impatient with Gail Goestenkors at Texas. After all, the two biggest prizes in the Lone Star State this year - Brooklyn Pope (No. 9, Rutgers) and Destini Hughes (No. 17, LSU) - are going elsewhere. On the other hand, when you cover the two most critical positions - post and point guard - in the same recruiting class, you really have something. That's what Goestenkors has done after getting a verbal from Yvonne Anderson, the 5-6 point guard from Columbia, Mo., last week. In September, Goestenkors landed her post, Ashley Gayle of Las Vegas, Nev., who is ranked No. 40 in the HoopGurlz Hundred for the 2008 class and had a great summer. Anderson, ranked just two spots below at No. 42, can be special. She's built like a tank, can defend and score in several different ways, and reads the game, well, like a coach's daughter. Which she is, of course. Her father, Mike Anderson, is the head men's basketball coach at Missouri. ... Chandler McCabe of Winter Park, Fla., a 6-4 forward who can shoot it from deep and put the ball on the floor, has verballed to Providence. ... Catching up on the Future File, we have Antonita Slaughter of Louisville, Kent., verballing during the summer to Louisville. No biggie since her sister, Toni, already plays for the Cardinals, right? No, unless you consider that Slaughter is a 2010 prospect. The 6-2 wing averaged 21 points and eight rebounds as a sophomore for Christian Academy. She had played on the varsity at South Shelby County as a freshman. ... Megan Vasquez, a slick-shooting, 5-8 guard from Calhoun High in Merrick, N.Y., and the 2009 class, likes Boston College, Columbia, Connecticut, Princeton, St. John's, Villanova, Virginia and Yale. Yes, she is a National Honor Roll member and All-American Scholar Award winner. Yale

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 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. Glenn can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.