Nov. 20, 2007
COLUMBIA – South Carolina women’s basketball signed five players last week in what Blue Star Basketball has tabbed the seventh-best recruiting class in the country. Head coach Susan Walvius signed one of Pennsylvania’s top players in Becky Burke and four Georgia standouts in Taylor Dalrymple, Charenee Stephens, Sada Wheeler and Tonia Williams. After having two of her previous three classes ranked among the nation’s top 20, this year Walvius has inked the highest-rated class of her tenure at South Carolina.
A 5-foot-11 guard, Burke was the only underclassman on the 2006-07 Pennsylvania AAAA all-state first team. She posted 20 or more points in 17 of her 25 games last season en route to her second-straight Scranton Times-Tribune Player of the Year award. A three-time all-region selection, Burke enters her senior season already ranked fifth on the Abington Heights High all-time scoring list with 1,463 career points. She led the Lady Comets to a 23-3 record in 2006-07, including a perfect 14-0 league mark, with 21 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. With a Lackawanna League Division I championship last season, Abington Heights fell just short of a district title for the second-straight year, losing to Scranton in the championship game.
Dalrymple is a 6-foot-2 forward who was a standout at Collins Hill High School before transferring to Patterson School in North Carolina for her senior season. A former teammate of current Gamecock Jordan Jones, Dalrymple was part of the nation’s top-ranked high school team, according to USA Today. She helped the Lady Eagles to their third-consecutive Georgia Class AAAAA state championship. No stranger to championship basketball or current Gamecocks, Dalrymple joined fellow-signee Stephens on the AAU national champion Georgia Metros. She was a first-team all-region selection in 2006 and was rated as high as the No. 11 power forward in the nation by Hoopgurlz.com.
Ranked the fifth-best forward in the nation by Scout.com, the 6-foot-1 Stephens was a first-team Class AAAA all-state selection last season and will vie for player of the year honors as a senior. Averaging 18 ppg and 11.6 rpg for the Panthers last season, she is tabbed the nation’s 33rd-best player in the class of 2008 by Hoopgurlz.com. Stephens also played on the Georgia Metros team that included current Gamecocks Ashlie Billingslea and Courtney Newton and won the AAU national championship last season.
Out of nearby Gainesville, Ga., Wheeler was the 2007 Gainesville Times Area Player of the Year after leading the Lady Vikings to the Georgia Class AAA state championship. The 6-foot-4 center averaged 13 points and seven rebounds last season and was an all-state honorable mention. East Hall was 31-1 last season and ended the season on a 13-game winning streak.
Considered among the top players in Middle Georgia, 6-foot-1 guard Williams averaged 20 points and 14 rebounds en route to Class AAAAA first-team all-state honors from the Georgia Writers Association. In the Georgia State AAAAA playoffs, she netted 37 points against highly-regarded Stephenson High.
Blue Star tapped Tennessee with the nation’s top recruiting class, followed by LSU, Rutgers, Connecticut, North Carolina and Georgetown.
