Justine Hartman worked hard this summer, and it's paying off as the former No. 12 moves into the No. 7 ranking on the HoopGurlz Super 60.
The rise of Justine Hartman from No. 12 to No. 7 in the 2011 women's basketball recruiting class might not seem meteoric, but to climb five spots among the nation's best players is a remarkable feat.
For Hartman, a 6-foot-2 post, basketball was spurred not from what friends were doing but from watching from the sideline as her father played in recreation leagues.
But the darling of Brea Olinda High School, the California Division II state champion last season, didn't have the instant success that now seems innate in her game. Take her first game in the sixth grade.
"I remember my first game, I scored on the wrong basket," Hartman said.
But she has been on the rise since.
The summer between a prospect's sophomore and junior years often can be characterized as a coming-into-her-own season for the nation's elite girls' hoop stars. They have two years of high school competition under their belts and have been out on the summer exposure circuit for at least one summer. The tensions aren't as ripe as they are for the prospects in the class ahead, which is understandable because those players have just one last July to make their final impressions on college recruiters.
Whether it's the discovery of maturity, abundance of opportunity, lack of pressure or pieces of all of those and more, a great group of 2011 prospects emerged this summer, which prompted ESPN HoopGurlz to expand its Terrific 25 from the spring to the Super 60.
Led by Hartman, the rest of the prospects previously ranked in the Terrific 25 also find themselves in the Super 60. The one-two punch of Elizabeth Williams (Virginia Beach, Va.) and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (Anaheim, Calif.) remain atop the class. Rounding out the top five are Ariel Massengale (Bolingbrook, Ill.), up two spots from No. 5; Amber Henson (Tampa, Fla.), also up two spots; and Bria Smith (Massapequa, N.Y.), up five spots to No. 5.
Hartman was not the only player from Southern California's Orange County to come into her own this summer. Bonnie Samuelson, a 3-point specialist from Huntington Beach, has been on the radar for a while because of her shooting accuracy, but that alone was not enough for her to crack the initial top 25 in the class.
But this summer, the silent assassin added more to her bag of tricks than just sharpshooting from long range.
"I talked to her about being one-dimensional," said Cal Swish club team coach Russ Davis of his pre-summer talks with Samuelson. "You need to use your length. It doesn't do any good to shoot 99 percent from the free throw line if you aren't doing the things to get you there."
Message received.
Samuelson, while still holding down her perimeter shooting duties, expanded her game greatly by listening to Davis and using her length to get by defenders gunning to take her shooting away. It paid dividends almost immediately, as the Swish won three of the four tournaments in which they played in July, and Samuelson's confidence seemed to grow with each trophy.
Samuelson now is ranked No. 14 in the class, the highest ranking of any player not previously ranked in the top 25. In addition to her newfound confidence, she has more offensive weapons at her disposal and has improved noticeably at using her length when rebounding.
Whitney Knight, a 6-1 guard from Winston-Salem, N.C., also cracked the top 20 from outside the previous top 25. Like Samuelson, she was invited to the USA under-16 trials but didn't make the final roster. Knight used the summer circuit with her Boo Williams club team to show what she was made of.
Early on, there has been a strong emergence from California in the 2011 class, with 11 of the Super 60 calling that state their home.
Hartman, the top prospect from the Golden State, was becoming a star as she entered the high school ranks at Brea Olinda. During her freshman and sophomore seasons, she led coach Jeff Sink's team in scoring and was poised to explode as one of the nation's top post prospects. Fate had another plan.
While trying out for the California Storm club team in March 2008, she elevated for a rebound in traffic and came down on another player's foot. Hartman injured her right knee, and it was her first real step back since scoring on the wrong goal in her first game as a sixth-grader.
The injury was a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament; those words are perhaps the scariest in the sport. Hartman had no prior history of knee problems, and the relief when her doctors told her she did not need surgery was monumental.
"I was just excited to not have surgery, so I was willing to do with whatever," Hartman said.
"Whatever" became three therapy sessions a week for at least two hours with an emphasis on building strength around the torn ligament.
A determined Hartman was ready to do what it took to get healthy and back on the court; there were big things on the horizon, with an invitation to the USA Basketball under-16 trials and a chance to play for the Stars and Stripes team in the FIBA Americas tournament.
"My knee would hurt sometimes, and we'd have to take a step back. Of course I got frustrated," Hartman said of the hiccups in her recovery. "I did get frustrated; I [didn't] want to be hurt. But I still kept with my therapy."
Without spring club ball to measure herself, Hartman went into the USA Basketball trials hoping she was ready.
Her play at the trials earned her a spot on the under-16 national team, and in Mexico City, she was one of five American players who averaged double figures in the tournament. Hartman's performance in August was the result of her making a bigger commitment to the game after the trials.
"I went back home after the USA trials eating less, eating the right things and working out training," said Hartman, adding that she dropped some weight before the July NCAA-certified evaluation period.
Although quickness never has been a major part of Hartman's game, the more nimble post took pride in more than just the scoring she'd been asked to do as a freshman and sophomore. She now has focused on the little things, and they've started to lead to big ones.
