HoopGurlz at Phila. Front Page News
Brittany Roundtree is the third Potter's House player to commit in the past week.
Each year there are stories about marquee prospects who are told by their club coaches not to commit early because college coaches lose incentive to follow their team.
Tony Bannister, Potter's House Christian Academy head coach and the director of the Jacksonville Lady Rams club team, is not one of those coaches. With Saturday's verbal commitment of Brittany Roundtree to North Carolina, five of the program's top perimeter players, all underclassmen, have verbally committed.
First, in June, Loliya Briggs, the No. 31 prospect in the 2011 class according to ESPN HoopGurlz, made a commitment to play at Pittsburgh, and in January junior Alexis Brown also went Big East, pledging to Seton Hall. About a week ago, Bannister's daughter Antoinette, a sophomore guard, gave her verbal commitment North Carolina. On Thursday, junior point guard Shalethia Stringfield chose South Florida.
Roundtree made the commitment during her unofficial visit to North Carolina where she took in the Tarheels' 64-54 upset victory over No. 6 Duke.
The 5-foot-9 Roundtree, a Jacksonville, Fla., native, can play either guard position. She excels with a smooth and in-control athleticism along with court smarts.
"I visited Rutgers," Roundtree said, "I felt at home and they made me feel comfortable and West Virginia made me comfortable on the phone too but something said wait and be patient."
Roundtree and Bannister have dreamed not only of playing at North Carolina but of playing together in college.
The two were the original members of Tony Bannister's club program, before there was even a full team. The path to basketball stardom for Roundtree seemed unlikely, even with parents and siblings who played all their lives.
"Well we thank God for the opportunity," Roundtree's mother Dorothy said. "Ever since the sixth grade she was a momma's girl and I didn't think she'd play basketball."
Bannister saw something in the youngster in the seventh grade and begged Roundtree's mother to let him teach her daughter how to shoot.
"She couldn't dribble, couldn't shoot," Dorothy Roundtree said, " I thought he was crazy but he always gave us a vision."
Roundtree admits it wasn't until the team won its first AAU state championship at the 10-and-under age group that she began to see the vision coming to fruition.
The recruiting process has always been a part of Bannister's plan. His young team already has been to more than 20 college campuses. The kids have been on the phone with colleges and preparing for their collegiate futures whether or not their top school was offering or not. That process led Roundtree to look long and hard at several schools including one-time frontrunners Rutgers and West Virginia, along with South Carolina and Virginia.
The family and Roundtree herself felt connections with the coaches from those schools, several of which she made unofficial visits to, but the reality set in that she could only go to one and the sense of home and comfort she felt at Chapel Hill exceeded the others.
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