Minneapolis South senior Tayler Hill has started and finished fast; Tigers play upstart Hopkins tonight.
She was offered a college scholarship by the University of Minnesota in the seventh grade.
She was tagged “Lady LeBron” before even entering Minneapolis South High School.
She not only made the South squad as an eighth-grader — even though she had not even yet enrolled — but she led the Minneapolis Star-Tribune Metro Area in scoring that year and made the newspaper’s first-team All-Metro squad.
Tayler Hill is Minnesota's career scoring leader
Courtesy of Gary Knox/gprep.net
Needless to say, 5-foot-10 combo guard Tayler Hill, who recently became the state’s career scoring leader among boys or girls, has always been ahead of her time.
Ranked the fifth best player from the Class of 2009 by MaxPreps, Hill said her love for the game developed long before her name popped up in basketball blogs or recruiting lists.
Matter of fact, it came not long after diapers and just about the time she lost her first baby tooth.
“I must have been five or six and I always wanted to play with all my cousins,” Hill said. “I was the only girl and I was the smallest and they didn’t really want me to play.”
Said Paul Hill, Tayler’s father: “She got the brush off all right. It didn’t take them long to figure out she was a threat though.”
By the time she was in the second grade, Paul Hill said, Tayler could dribble behind her back, crossover and go end-to-end and make a lay-up.
“She was doing things most fifth-grade boys couldn’t do,” he said.
It helped to have an older brother like P.J. Hill, a junior guard for Ohio State. Paul Hill, who played junior college ball, has also been a major influence. He started the Minnesota NC Heat AAU program for girls.
P.J.’s game always pushed her to greater heights.
“(P.J.) was who I looked up to all my life and he always encouraged me,” she said. “We’re very close. We call each other and talk after every game.”
She had a couple of other players, Allen Iverson and Diana Taurasi, inspire her growing up as well.
“I was the always the smallest and I always wanted to be the best,” she said. “I had to do everything possible to get better.”
She’s considered nearly fundamentally flawless. She has 3-point shooting range and is fearless to the basket. Last season, she led South to a 30-2 record by averaging 22.5 points and 2.4 steals per game. She was the Star’s Metro Player of the Year and All-Metro for a fourth straight season.
This season, she’s scoring at an even more rapid pace, ranking sixth in the nation at 31.9 per game for the 27-2 Tigers, who play Hopkins tonight in a Section 6 4A title game. Hopkins has already handed Minneapolis South one of its two losses, 55-37 on Nov. 29.
The Tigers, winners of 24 straight, avenged that loss with a 55-42 victory on New Year’s Eve.
There’s some discrepancy on when she actually broke the state record for scoring – some believe in the middle of last month, others on Feb. 28 when she had 31 against St. Paul Central. The old record was 3,694 set by current University of Minnesota forward Katie Ahm, who finished her high school career in 2005 at Elgin-Millville.
Heading into tonight’s game Hill has 3,765 points and has reached the 30-point mark 21 times this season, with a high of 41.
She was an easy pick for the McDonald's All-American team.
Hill’s accomplishments and numbers have helped give Minneapolis South a name, but according to the school’s athletic director Mark Sanders, her persona is exemplary.
“She is how you want your athletes to represent your school,” he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “She is so well-liked by all the students, whether they're athletes or not. She's not big-headed at all, like you find in a lot of athletes who are so-called superstars. … We don't have a lot going for us as far as facilities, glitter, bells and whistles. But she's done so much for our school.”
Tayler Hill is a McDonald's All-American
Courtesy of Gary Knox/gprep.net
The only thing missing from Tayler’s high school resume is a championship.
The top-seeded Tigers lost in the state finals to St. Paul Central last year 49-44. Hill couldn’t stand another bitter defeat late in the season.
“It was heartbreaking (last year), but it just made me more determined to get better so I can help us win it this year,” she said.
The Tigers are just two wins away.
“We’re right there,” she said. “It’s right within reach. We just have to push through.”
Everyone wants to know her plans after this season. She’s made official visits to Duke, Texas, Rutgers, Marquette and Rhode Island and unofficial trips to Ohio State, Minnesota, North Carolina, DePaul, Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Indiana.
She wants to go pre-med so academics figures into the equation as much as basketball.
Whoever gets her won’t get the flashiest player in the country, but perhaps the most polished. What sets Hill apart, by most reports, is her basketball IQ.
Her high school coach Ahmil Jihad told the Star-Tribune: “She understands the game, she finds weaknesses and she takes over. She has a demeanor that’s real calming, but at the same time she’s very intense. She’s even-keel the whole game.”
It’s a game rooted back to when she tried to impress her older male cousins.
“They thought I was just a little girly-girl and I wanted to be anything but a girly-girl,” she said. “Now I’m all girly-girl who just plays basketball.”
E-mail Mitch Stephens at mstephens@maxpreps.com.
"Lady LeBron"
Who: Tayler Hill
School: Minneapolis South
Height: 5-10
Position: Combo guard
Strengths: Shooting, ball-handling, poise, Basketball IQ
Needs work: Mid-range game, pull-up jumper
Idols: P.J. Hill (her brother), Allen Iverson, Diana Taurasi
2009 recruiting rank: MaxPreps (No. 5)
Other highlights: 31.1 points per game (2008-09), 22.5 ppg (07-08); 26.7 ppg (06-07); State’s career scoring leader at 3,765; Four-time All-Metro first-team; 2007-08 Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year ; Only sophomore invited to the USA Basketball Youth Development Festival.
College plans: Wide open though official visits to Duke, Texas, Rutgers, Marquette and Rhode Island.
