Georgia's Top Girls Basketball Recruits Featured At "Hardwood" Classic

Over the weekend, the Queens of the Hardwood basketball classic took place at Whitewater High School in Fayetteville, Georgia. The annual classic has featured some of the metro area’s top basketball programs and players and when speaking with the classic director, Revelle Williams, he says when it comes to putting on high school basketball events, his “main goal is to start these events and keep them going primarily to give visibility and exposure to the student athletes,” to help them further their education the way he was able to through while playing basketball in high school in Memphis and later in college at Wingate University. As for Queens of the Hardwood, Williams and his team started the event four years ago with hopes of growing it into event that featured the state’s top girls’ basketball programs. Since its inception, the Georgia High School Association girl’s basketball Class 7A three time defending champions, the Westlake Lions, have played in the annual classic and in 2019, the event featured the Lions taking on the Lovejoy Wildcats, the 2018 GHSA 6A state champs. The game also featured some of the state’s top ranked players including Genesis Bryant and Anaya Boyd, who were both sophomores and starters on the 2019 championship team. Boyd is now a freshman with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Bryant a freshman with the NC State Wolfpack. Meanwhile Westlake was led by Raven Johnson, the 2020 Gatorade Georgia Girls Basketball Player of the Year and South Carolina Gamecocks commit as well as Ta’Niya Latson, who is considered one of the top recruits out of the class of 2022.
This weekend, Johnson and Latson were both back on the court during the classic when Westlake took on the McEachern Indians, who won four straight state titles from 2014 to 2017. On the court for the Indians was Denim DeShields, one of the nation’s top recruits in the class of 2021 and younger sister of WNBA star, Diamond DeShields. Other notable players that were in action on Saturday during the classic were Autumn Phillips and Damisha Cain of Langston Hughes, Kionna Gaines of Carver-Columbus, Kyla Cain of The Galloway School and L’or Mputu of Greenforest. Up next for Williams will be his annual Peach State Christmas Classic December 18th and December 19th. The Peach State has traditionally been a three day tournament, but due to COVID-19, this year’s event will instead just showcase some of the state’s top boys and girl’s basketball teams going head to head including Westlake versus Forest Park, the defending GHSA 6A state champs on the girls side and Fayette County versus Tri Cities on the boys side.