The lifeblood of any college sports program is recruiting – or ’cruitin’ as it’s sometime called in the South – and Tennessee women’s basketball has cranked up its efforts with school back in session.
The Lady Vols will host two five-star recruits to end the month of August in Madison Booker, a 6-1 wing, from Ridgeland, Mississippi, and S’Mya Nichols, a 6-0 wing from Overland Park, Kansas. First up is Booker, who will be in Knoxville from Aug. 26-28 for her official visit, followed by Nichols on Aug. 28-30. The two can probably high-five in the airport. Both are in the high school class of 2023, and both players earned spots this summer on a USA Basketball junior national team.
An official visit allows a recruit to be on campus for 48 hours, and the school picks up the tab for travel, hotel and food. Both players also have taken previous unofficial visits – that means the family pays for the trip – to Tennessee, so the interest on both sides is quite high.
Since Kellie Harper arrived three years ago, she has taken a deliberate and thorough approach to recruiting – she and her staff vet each player by making multiple phone calls to coaches, principals, teachers and guidance counselors in addition to the on-court evaluations. If a high school player is making an official visit to Tennessee, the staff wants her name on a letter of intent – LOI in recruiting parlance – that fall.
Jim Pissott, the father of current freshman basketball player Justine Pissott, who is from Toms River, New Jersey, told this writer in 2020 after his daughter committed to Tennessee as a high school junior, that the vetting process was impressive. He was a longtime law enforcement officer who served on a SWAT team, so he understands background checks.
“My wife and I, at one point we were talking and I said, ‘They’re not just recruiting Justine like this, so every kid that they have on this campus went through this same vetting process that she’s going through,’ he said. “It was amazing.”
Tennessee women’s basketball recruit S’Mya Nichols dons her Team USA jersey for the 2022 FIBA WU18 Americas Championship. Team USA won gold in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 19. (USA Basketball)
Two other players in the class of 2023 made official visits to Tennessee on the last weekend of June in Aalyah Del Rosario, a 6-6 post, and Angelica Velez, a 5-7 guard. Both play at Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, a small town south of Nashville. Velez made it to the private school from The Bronx, New York, as did Del Rosario, who was born in the United States and raised in the Dominican Republic before moving to the Northeast to live with her uncle and play basketball. A fifth high school recruit also is in the mix in Kymora Johnson, a 5-7 guard from Charlottesville, Virginia, who made an unofficial visit earlier in August.
The teammates visited when the current Lady Vols were on campus for summer school. That also will be the case this week when Booker and then Nichols arrive. Classes started today at UT, which means the NCAA now allows coaches to start court workouts with players for a limited number of hours each week.
Harper and her staff already crushed the transfer portal last spring and added four new college-proven players for the 2022-23 season in forwards Jasmine Franklin, Jillian Hollingshead and Rickea Jackson and guard Jasmine Powell.
The next step in the process is to add some stellar high school talent to the roster for the 2023-24 season. High school recruits who commit in the fall can sign in November – a process that a lot prefer because it ends the recruiting process before their senior season. The Lady Vols could sign two to four players in the 2023 class. (The second recruiting season comes in the spring when players enter and exit the transfer portal, so that number is always fluid.)
A year ago, Harper bolstered her staff by adding proven recruiter Samantha Williams – she was key to the success of Duke and Louisville – and Joy McCorvey. Harper’s directive to the new assistant coaches was to focus on building relationships with the players and their parents and coaches in the upcoming classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Assistant coaches Joy McCorvey and Samantha Williams (UT Athletics)
Harper knew she had Pissott, a 6-4 sharpshooter, in the 2022 class, and she knew her new assistants were swimming upstream to forge solid relationships with that class. The recruiting process starts when players are freshmen in high school and sometimes even middle school. Harper and her staff eyeballed the transfer portal to fill this season’s immediate roster needs and ended up signing a loaded class of newcomers via that route.
If the dominoes fall in the right direction for the Lady Vols, the recruiting class of 2023 could easily be ranked in the top five or even top three. That will end any speculation about Harper being able to recruit high school players to Tennessee, the final piece of the head coach puzzle. Harper has shown she can win. She has upgraded the schedule since she arrived for the 2019-20 season.
She has weathered a pandemic that disrupted two seasons. She has shown she can coach, especially getting a team to the Sweet 16 for the first time in six years after losing Jordan Horston, the team’s statistical leader in every significant category. The next step is lassoing one of the country’s top signing classes out of high school as Harper prepares to enter her fourth season at Tennessee.
As noted in this space before here, it ain’t over until the fax lady sings. But, as of now, it’s looking bright orange for the Lady Vols.
SOCCER: The soccer program has started the season with one loss and one tie and will be looking for the first outright win of the 2022 season this Thursday, Aug. 25, against Duke at 7 p.m. at Regal Soccer Stadium in Knoxville.
It won’t be easy. The Blue Devils are ranked No. 2 in the country. Tennessee, which is ranked No. 11, tied No. 23 SMU last Sunday, 1-1. Last week, the season opening 3-0 loss was on the road to perennial powerhouse North Carolina, which is ranked No. 10. Redshirt freshman Ally Zazzara made her collegiate debut at goalkeeper against the Tar Heels after veteran Lindsey Romig missed the game due to illness. Zazzara bounced back against SMU with six saves with Romig still sidelined.
After the 1-1 tie, head coach Joe Kirt said: “We would’ve liked another 20 minutes to get another goal there. We created a ton of chances. Some moments we were pretty good, and other moments we weren’t good enough. That’s the difference in the game.”
Kudos to Kirt, who is in his first season as a head coach, for not making any excuses and for playing a stacked non-conference schedule rather than loading up on teams that couldn’t challenge Tennessee. The SEC coaches predicted the Lady Vols would win the conference. Tennessee will be well-tested when SEC play starts Sept. 16 at Florida.
Maria M. Cornelius, a writer/editor at Moxley Carmichael since 2013, began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press. She can be reached at mmcornelius23@gmail.com.