Eldorado's Bella Hines lists her top 10 college choices
Mar. 17—LSU, present. Same for Iowa. The University of New Mexico? Nope.
Eldorado High School's junior guard, Bella Hines, on Sunday released the list of her top 10 college basketball choices.
The defending national champions, LSU, and the team the Tigers beat in the championship game, Iowa, made the list. So did Baylor, Arizona, Texas Tech, North Carolina State, West Virginia, Florida State, TCU and Kansas State.
What was the common denominator?
"Definitely, just, the culture," Hines said Sunday. "And I felt (I) built really great relationships with the coaching staffs."
Hines said she is making her first official visit this week, to LSU, where she plans to attend their NCAA Tournament game.
The University of New Mexico was not among the 10 finalists. Asked why, Hines said it was because the Lobos didn't recruit her as hard as the other schools.
That Florida State is on this list is coincidence, Hines said, given that the last major Division I girls basketball recruit from Albuquerque, Cibola's Amaya Brown, signed with FSU. The Seminoles, Hines added, were one of the first to offer her.
And Hines said she and Brown are close. "She's like my big sister," Hines said.
The plan was to announce this top 10 list at the end of the summer, Hines said, at the end of her club season with Houston-based CyFair Elite, which begins in a couple of weeks. But she decided to accelerate that decision.
"It was a super hard process," Hines said.
The 5-foot-9 guard led the state in scoring, and helped the Eagles into the Class 5A quarterfinals, where they lost to eventual state champion Sandia.
Hines was in the Pit on Saturday as the Matadors, led by Sydney Benally, the Gatorade Player of the Year for New Mexico, beat Volcano Vista.
