The extended Cardinal family received a terrific honor today when Stanford basketball commit Jana Van Gytenbeek of Cherry Creek High School was named the 2019-20 Gatorade Colorado Girls Basketball Player of the Year. She becomes the first player to earn such an honor from her high school.
The full release, found here, also states that Van Gytenbeek is also a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Basketball Player of the Year, awarded later in March. She is the second straight Cardinal to win the award in the state, joining Francesca Belibi as winners as Belibi won the award in Colorado last year at Regis Jesuit.
Selected as the best girls basketball player in her state, Van Gytenbeek led her team to a 22-2 record and into the third round of the Colorado Class 5A state tournament. She averaged 18.3 points, 7.7 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 3.2 steals per game and was nabbed as a First-Team All-State selection the past two seasons.
Van Gytenbeek is no stranger to honors for her efforts on the basketball court as she is ranked as the 29th-best recruit this season and has 1,707 career points to date while also setting the Colorado state record with 656 career assists.
Off the court, Van Gytenbeek is also no stranger to honors as she earned a 4.07 GPA in the classroom and has spent time volunteering with Project C.U.R.E., helping raise money to benefit hospitals and clinics in the developing world. She was also a volunteer coach on behalf of the Salvation Army.
Van Gytenbeek has led Cherry Creek to a No. 1 ranking in Colorado according to MaxPreps and are ranked as the 64th-best girls high school basketball team in the country. They’ll be in action tonight against Ralston Valley.
With her track record in high school both on the court and off, Van Gytenbeek seems like a perfect fit for what the Cardinal bring to the table year in and year out. She’ll have at least one more game to showcase her skills before the Gatorade Basketball Player of the Year award is announced.
For more on the Gatorade Player of the Year, check out past winners including our own Belibi at Gatorade.com/POY.
Comments
Never too early to think about next year
You can never count out a Tara team and there is still a lot of basketball to be played this year before the crowning of a national champion. But this article gives us the opportunity to look at next year’s team.
Kiana Williams returns at point. Hopefully Haley Jones’s rehab goes well enough for her to be the off guard. Lexi Hull is the third guard, and possibly Carrington for a fifth year if she decides to return and is given a medical redshirt. Lacie Hull and Jenna Brown return for bench strength at guard. That leaves very little playing time for Van Gytenbeek. If you look at her on You Tube, she’s not as complete a player as the consensus pick for this year’s National Player of the Year, Paige Bueckers, or next year’s Azzi Fudd, but she’s certainly a five star player. It will be interesting to see who wins the backup point guard position, her or Brown, who was also a five star recruit.
The one sure starter for next year will be Cameron Brink. Tall, athletic, and certainly one of the top three recruits in the country. She is a terrific outside shooter (no surprise as her mother was a college roommate with Stephen Curry’s mom, Dell Curry’s wife). You can see the Curry influence on her shooting right away. She needs to add some weight to survive the pounding of college basketball, but she is special.
What about the rest of the squad? If Belibi can develop a jump shot (as Natalie Fingall developed her three point shooting in the off season), she will be very hard to guard. If Hannah Jump can work on setting up her shot (heck, just watch tonight how Destiny Slocum of Oregon State does precisely that), she’ll insure a lot more playing time. That leaves Prectel, who in my opinion holds the key to Stanford’s national championship chances next year. She’s worked a lot on her offense in high school, but not enough on her defense. She relies too much on her height, which was fine in high school, not so much in college. Both Oregon State freshmen centers (the one hurt and the one not) are far more skilled on defense. If Prechtel can learn how to be a defensive force in the key, Stanford will be a lot of fun to watch and very hard to beat even by the excellent teams at Connecticut (with Bueckers), Oregon (with the top recruiting class) and South Carolina (with just about everyone back).
Now, beat OSU tonight.
By SU74 on 03.06.20 4:22pm
Van Gytenbeek
How do you devote an article about a star recruit and not include her photo? Which player in the group photo is Van Gytenbeek?
By DOGMAN1947 on 03.07.20 5:56am