No. 1 women's basketball recruit Aaliyah Chavez narrows list to six

Aaliyah Chavez, the No. 1 player in the Class of 2025 released her top six schools. The six programs she included are LSU, Texas, South Carolina, UCLA, Texas Tech and Oklahoma. 

The 5-foot-11 point guard from Lubbock (Texas) Monterey High School narrowed her list down from 10 schools recently, but with the new update USC, Arizona, Tennessee and Ohio State are no longer in consideration. 

“The most important thing is to make sure I’m in a place where I have high energy,” Chavez told On3. “I don’t want a coach that’s low energy, and I need to make sure that they’re going to be there the whole time [I am]. I don’t want a coach that’s just going to be there for two years… I want them to be there all four years. Because that’s what I’m getting recruited off of, right? I want to be there all four years.” 

Chavez leads all scorers on the Nike EYBL circuit with 23.7 points, while also averaging 4.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds. But she wants to continue getting stronger before college. 

She’s unofficially visited Texas Tech and LSU and is in the process of scheduling official visits to the remaining programs. 

On3 talked to Chavez about her top schools last weekend:

Texas Tech

“That’s my hometown, so that has an advantage. I’d love to be a hometown hero. I love the coaching staff – they’ve recruited me really well…They have one of the highest [level] facilities I would say.” 

South Carolina

“They’re always in at least the top four [nationally] so they’re a great program. I want to be at a winning program too. Their coaching staff is recruiting me really well.”

Oklahoma

“It’s not too far from home and I love coach Jennie [Baranczyk]. She’s the head coach that I usually talk to. She’s very young, and I like how they just play basketball. They don’t try to force anything – no sets. They just go out there and play basketball.” 

LSU

“They’ve recruited me very well. I think I talk to at least an assistant coach every day. They definitely talk to my parents a lot. They’re also a winning program, and I would love to win… [The visit] was fun. It was definitely different than the other visits. They had all the girls there when I was there, so they were in my photoshoots. It was definitely a different vibe. I like their energy as well – at the photoshoot, it was so high. There was no low energy at all.”

UCLA

“I’ve never been to California, so I want to take a visit there for sure. I like the way they play… They’re not slowed down. They’re recruiting me very well.” 

Texas

“They were one of my first offers too, so just keeping them in. They’re close to home. They recruit me well. I think I talk to them almost every day too and they always have high energy.”