AAU Week #5: The calm before the storm

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The calm before the storm. That's what Saturday's AAU Shootout at Bloomington Kennedy felt like – an intimate gathering with only a dozen girls teams in grades 7-11 taking part. It was pretty chill. In contrast, the storm will hit on Friday night when the State Prelims begin, the first step towards a state championship title in a winner-take-all extravaganza featuring 234 squads in the same age range. Despite the thin field, the Shootout offered up a few fresh faces and the return of a promising young prospect. Here's what we liked about AAU Week #5.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>FRESH FACE OF THE WEEK</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Mari Lang – 2027 guard, Legacy Hoops East Gold</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Athleticism. When people ask me what is the initial thing we look for when viewing a player for the first time, that is always my answer. Athletic players, especially those with length, have an immediate leg up on everyone else. That's the first thing we noticed with Mari, too. The strides, the bounce, the elevation, the lightness of the feet. All of that made her stand out early Saturday morning when the guard from Stillwater – she'll play high school ball at Hill-Murray – took to the floor with her Legacy Hoops teammates. We loved Mari's courage and confidence on the floor. The Eurostep attempt was a thing of beauty. And the way she ran effortlessly up and down the court was equally nice. Having said all that, Mari (top photo) has a ton of stuff to work on. Her decision-making, for example, showed a lack of experience. Her tendency to dribble into heavy traffic led to unnecessary turnovers. But that stuff is correctable and will evolve in a positive direction over time. What matters now is that Lang is a prospect with potential and a ton of upside. That's what we came to see on Saturday.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='648052' first='Leah' last='Carter'] <strong>– 2026 forward, Southwest Minnesota Fury</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If you'd like to watch Leah play this winter, get out your road atlas – remember those? – and travel 75 miles west of Mankato to Cottonwood County and the town of Westbrook, home of the Westbrook-Walnut Grove Chargers. Be sure to stop at Bonnie and Clyde's for a sandwich. If you reach the Rolling Hills Golf Course you will have gone too far. With a total enrollment of 92, WWG is one of the smaller schools in Class A. In the old days the only way a hidden gem like Carter would be found is by word of mouth. Thanks to AAU and the Southwest Minnesota Fury, we saw Carter on Saturday and we're here to tell you that this is a post with potential.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>At 6'1, with a solid frame and the ability to run up and down the court in impressive fashion, Leah has the raw material to be a scholarship-level prospect. Carter, who also plays volleyball and softball, is a farm kid with the strength, size and work ethic to get to the next level. She moved very well, saw the floor, made some good passes, and owned her space down low. Carter is deceptively quick for her size and she can elevate well. She is a quality rebounder and we saw Leah block a handful of shots on Saturday with relative ease. We loved the simplicity of Carter's game. She didn't force shots, didn't try to make hero plays in heavy traffic, didn't over-step the scope of her abilities. The biggest thing missing is the type of higher-end ball-handling skills that enable a post to put the ball on the floor and score off the bounce. If she works with a skills trainer, if she focuses on developing the necessary nuances, Carter is a scholarship prospect all day long.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:image {"id":511703,"width":512,"height":341,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img src="https://prepgirlshoops.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/09/38-Lola-Lundquist-scaled.jpg?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-511703" width="512" height="341" /></figure> <!-- /wp:image --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>SIX-MONTH CHECK-UP</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='502544' first='Lola' last='Lundquist'] <strong>– 2026 guard, MN Nice 2026 Bryant</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Small but skillful and athletic, it doesn't take long to pick Lola out of a crowd. We hadn't seen Lundquist since she made a solid first impression last fall at the Prep Girls Hoops Freshmen Showcase where our colleague Tony Ragulen wrote that he would “take a player like Lundquist on my team seven days a week and twice on Sunday.” After watching her Saturday with Minnesota Nice, we would agree. Lola has a nice feel for the game, sets the tempo for her team, and makes excellent decisions for a 9th grader. She can also score the basketball. Lola averaged 13 points per game on Saturday after putting up 11 ppg last week at the Spring Showdown. Defensively she is a pest, constantly poking and prodding and otherwise making life difficult for opposing ball handlers. Lola is the best prospect we've seen out of Blue Earth since <strong>Caitlin Rorman</strong> graduated in 2019. It will be fun to watch her game grow.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>RECRUITING UPDATE</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It's getting awfully late for the Class of 2023 graduates still holding on to the Division 1 dream. In the past if a player didn't have their D1 college opportunity sewn up by the time the high school season ended in March, they were headed for plan B – often a choice to go the junior college route in hopes of making a D1 roster in a year or two. This year is the exception, however, as last week we saw two prospects grab hold of a precious D1 position. [player_tooltip player_id='108320' first='Kelly' last='Boyle'] of Hopkins and the Metro Stars, a Top 50 prospect and one of the state's premier shooters from distance, will play at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. And [player_tooltip player_id='108327' first='Sierre' last='Lumpkin'], who had a very good run to the state Class 3A title with Benilde-St. Margaret's, had a late change of heart choosing basketball over volleyball and landing an opportunity at D1 Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. Coming on the heels of Top 20 prospect [player_tooltip player_id='302254' first='Vanessa' last='Saidu'] (Robbinsdale Cooper &amp; Legacy Hoops) committing to high major Texas A&amp;M, that brings the total number of D1 commits in the class to an impressive 29.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Among the other recent 2023 commits are:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#30 [player_tooltip player_id='148338' first='Grace' last='Counts'] of Providence Academy to UM-Duluth</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#52 [player_tooltip player_id='353081' first='Macaya' last='Copeland'] of Hopkins to Rochester Community and Technical College</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#61 [player_tooltip player_id='302260' first='Tori' last='Miller'] of Goodhue to North Iowa Area Community College (IA)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#71 [player_tooltip player_id='148327' first='Haylie' last='Strum'] of Stewartville to Luther College (IA)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#73 [player_tooltip player_id='108331' first='Nicole' last='Lillard'] of Champlin Park to Lake Region State College (ND)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#76 [player_tooltip player_id='148316' first='Grace' last='Knupp'] of East Ridge to UW-La Crosse (WI)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#83 [player_tooltip player_id='337626' first='Jessica' last='Oberlander'] of Wayzata to Jamestown (ND)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#85 [player_tooltip player_id='108319' first='Aniyah' last='Reuben'] of Minnehaha Academy to Rochester Community and Technical College</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>#100 [player_tooltip player_id='186114' first='Keeley' last='Steele'] of Stewartville to North Iowa Area Community College (IA)</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>#25 [player_tooltip player_id='148315' first='Emily' last='Christenson'] of East Ridge and #26 [player_tooltip player_id='108308' first='Savanna' last='Jones'] of Eden Prairie remain as the top unsigned seniors.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>COMING UP</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As mentioned above, the State Prelims begin Friday night. It wasn't that long ago when about 25 to 30 teams per grade would do battle in the chase for an AAU state championship. Participation in the girls game might be waning across the country – at least that's what we're told on a regular basis – but it's booming at the AAU level in these parts. The 2023 team counts look like this:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><!-- wp:list-item --> <li>17U – 38 teams</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>16U – 51 teams</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>15U – 51 teams</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>14U – 47 teams</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>13U – 47 teams</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>That's 234 teams in all, 46 squads per grade, and well north of 2,000 players taking part. Out of all that, multiple state champions will be crowned on May 14. We'll have some preview content later in the week when we'll look at the favorites, some contenders and a couple of dark horse squads, as well. Play gets under way Friday evening.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->