Five-star Midwestern guard announces her commitment to South Carolina
South Carolina women’s basketball has its first public commitment in the recruiting class of 2021 — Aubryanna Hall.
Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has tweeted about four commits over the past several weeks, but Hall’s announcement on social media Monday makes her the first to identify herself.
Hall, who goes by “Bree,” is a 6-foot guard from Toledo, Ohio who is ranked 26th overall in her class by ESPN and is a five-star prospect. She checks in at No. 52 overall in the Prospects Nation rankings and No. 43 in the All-Star Girls Report.
In addition to South Carolina, she considered a finalist group with SEC powers Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi State, as well as nationally prominent programs in Texas, N.C. State and Ohio State.
In the end, though, the Gamecocks won out, two years after they first extended a scholarship offer to Hall. Since then, she’s taken several visits to Columbia, including this February when she was on hand to see USC defeat UConn.
Hall will join fellow Midwesterners Zia Cooke and Brea Beal in the Gamecock backcourt. At 6-foot, she brings length to defend the perimeter and rebound well for her position, while still flashing speed to make plays in transition, as well as a strong jumper.
“Athletic big-guard rises on jumper in mid-range game and delivers; defends, traps in pressure, converts plays from turnovers; emerging offensive game to the arc is key to next level impact; back court size,” ESPN’s Dan Olson wrote in an evaluation of her.
This past season Hall was named first-team all-state in Ohio by MaxPreps, averaging 21.8 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. She helped lead Wayne High School to a 22-3 record.
After reeling in the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2019, the Gamecocks took a smaller class in 2020, with only five-star guard Eniya Russell out of Baltimore, Maryland. With only nine scholarships committed for 2021-22, Carolina can afford to take on up to six players in this recruiting class.
Shortly after Monday’s announcement, Staley seemed to confirm that Hall was one of the four commitments she previously tweeted about, saying “first birdie revealed!!”
That leaves three prospects who have yet to publicly identify themselves. The Big Spur reported that 6-foot guard Saniya Rivers, out of Wilmington, North Carolina, is another commit, citing an opposing coaching staff, but she has yet to announce.
South Carolina is coming off a record-breaking 2019-20 season in which the Gamecocks went 32-1 and ended the year on a 26-game win streak, including a perfect 19-0 mark in the SEC regular season and tournament. Staley’s squad was ranked No. 1 in the country in the AP poll for the final 10 weeks of the season and were widely expected to be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This story was originally published May 25, 2020 at 3:02 PM.
