Bella Vista wins Nike Tournament title
The annual Nike Tournament of Champions girls basketball classic at the Legacy Park courts in Mesa hosted 112 teams from across the nation, Monday to Thursday.
Among the 23 Arizona teams within the prestigious tournament's seven divisions, Scottsdale Bella Vista Prep was the last program standing from the state to win a championship.
Bella Vista rolled past Grind Prep of Oklahoma City 59-34 for the Clare Droesch division title.
The team was led by Aiyanna Perkins, who had 15 points in the victory. Bella Vista starters Gal Raviv (12), Grace Strickland (12) and Mariam Traore (11) also scored in double figures, with Adeang Ring contributing nine.
"That was the team that beat us in Texas about three weeks ago," Bella Vista head coach Donnis Henry said. "They've got a potential McDonalds AllAmerican in Sania Richardson at the point guard spot, but AP (Perkins) shut her down."
Perkins, Ring, and Raviv were named to the All-Tournament Team honors, and Raviv earned the Droesch division's Most Outstanding Player award. Ring, the Central Florida-committed senior, and junior guard Perkins are ranked eighth and 14th, respectively, in The Arizona Republic's top 50 Arizona list for this season.
"I know that we definitely had to key in on defense, and that's why when we made the adjustment of guarding their best player, it helped a lot," Perkins said. "In the previous game, it was just like 3 after 3 they were raining. So when we shut that down, the flow of the game was completely better for (our) offense and defense."
There were Division I scouts representing 86 college programs watching the state's top teams at the tournament.
Some of the local high schools were from the AIA's 2A-6A conferences including Phoenix Xavier Prep, Phoenix Pinnacle, Chandler Seton Catholic, Goodyear Millennium, Gilbert Perry, Salpointe Catholic, Phoenix Country Day, and the Grind Session teams Chandler AZ Compass Prep and Bella Vista.
Bella Vista, now 13-1, won the Grind
Session girls world title last season.
"I definitely think it helps big time, just the opportunity to get the platform to play in front of all these coaches and showcase what you want," Perkins said.
The Arizona girls basketball prep scene, or Canyon Athletic Association (CAA), has always been small compared to the AIA, which encompasses hundreds of public and private schools.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the state's top girls basketball players left AIA schools for upstart prep programs such as AZ Elite Prep and Phoenix PHH Prep, which have since dissolved. The prep scene has considerably downsized since last year when the AIA implemented a shot clock and Open Division, which drew many top-recruited players such as Desert Vista's Stanford-commit Shay Ijiwoye to return to their home district AIA schools.
But there are players like South Phoenix native Perkins, one of the state's most dominant scorers at Tempe McClintock over the past two years, helping make Bella Vista an attraction for players from all over the state, nation, and the world like the Israel-born Raviv.
"It does have a lot of growth to it. It just hasn't shown it in the West a lot," Henry said about the local prep scene. "In the Midwest and East Coast, this is big. They got leagues, they got all kinds of stuff going on with Montverde (Florida), DME (Daytona, Florida) predicated on the boys' side of it, Example Academy
(all-girls school in Frankfort, Illinois), so it's only going to get bigger in the west."
Henry further explained how much winning a Nike TOC title adds to Bella Vista's pedigree as one of the best in the state's and national prep ranks.
"As for the win, all this program has done is win the past two seasons," Henry said. "We won the Grind Session, and then to come back and go 3-1 at She Got Game (tournament in Washington), go 4-0 at the Hope International tournament, all to prepare ourselves for this and defending our Grind Session championship, this is a good deal. Two seasons ago, we couldn't get out of our own way in the prep division."