Avalanche of interest: Frederick eighth-grader Ivanna Wilson Manyacka wowing spectators -- including Division I coaches

Mar. 17—Possessing height, athleticism and the varied skills of a combo guard, 6-footer Ivanna Wilson Manyacka often dominates on the basketball court.

But there's always room for improvement. For instance, she thinks her jumper could be more consistent. And another type of shot, one taken much closer to the basket, could use some tweaking.

"I've only dunked once," she said, referring to a highlight — captured on video — that occurred during a practice.

She wants to dunk in a game. Give her time. She's not even in high school yet.

Wilson Manyacka, a 13-year-old Frederick resident, is an eighth-grader who recently transferred from Monocacy Middle School to Bullis School in Potomac. Granted, it's easy to forget she's so young.

Wilson Manyacka would've been one of the tallest players on any Frederick County Public Schools varsity girls basketball team this season. She routinely dominates against older competition, wowing longtime coaches as well as spectators. She speaks maturely about her lofty, albeit realistic, basketball goals.

And most strikingly, she's garnered an avalanche of interest from Division I college programs — including Power Five teams — and several have already dangled scholarships. Wilson Manyacka said she's received offers from Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, George Mason, Boston College and Northeastern.

Most high school seniors, let alone eighth-graders, only dream about appearing on the radar of Division I college coaches.

"It was very overwhelming at first," she said. "I didn't think I was good enough to get these amount of offers at such a young age because not everybody has that opportunity, so I'm blessed and very grateful for what's going on right now."

Basketball is one of the few sports in which coaches are permitted by NCAA rules to offer scholarships to athletes so early. College coaches in most other sports must wait until Aug. 1 or Sept. 1 — depending on the sport — of a student's junior year to make an offer.

So, Wilson Manyacka isn't the only middle schooler getting such offers. In fact, Finley Chastain, an eighth grader from Prosper, Texas, has verbally committed to play for Tennessee.

Wilson Manyacka said she's in no hurry to commit, figuring patience is the key.

Meanwhile, she wants to keep working to bolster her game and plans to keep up with her studies.

"I just want big things for myself," she said. "But mostly, D1 basketball and making it to the WNBA."

But first, she'll embark on her high school career at Bullis. After enrolling in the Montgomery County private school, she practiced with the varsity team and played in some junior varsity games. In one of those JV games, she scored 47 points.

DOMINATING ON THE COURT

Wilson Manyacka has delivered similarly dominant performances for Monocacy's Mid-Maryland AA Varsity girls team and Team Final, a Montgomery County-based travel team she's been playing with for about two years.

"She's averaging 30 points a game," Monocacy coach Danny Miller said before the team concluded its 2022-23 season by winning the league championship. "Most of the teams in our league don't even average that many a game."

In the Mid-Maryland semifinals on March 11, Wilson Manyacka scored 40 points to lead Monocacy to a 72-38 win over a quality Frederick team. Running the floor on fast breaks and attacking the basket on athletic drives, she hit several layups. She also nailed three 3s, including a deep one just before the second-quarter buzzer.

"I've seen a lot of high school games around here this year," Miller said. "She could easily play on any high school team right now with her size and strength and ability to handle the ball."

Miller heard about Wilson Manyacka — whose family moved from Gaithersburg to Frederick about four years ago — before he saw her for the first time last year when she was a seventh-grader.

"We were having an open gym before the season," Miller said. "And the principal came up to me and said, 'You've got a girl that's going to be coming out for the team that's killing all the boys at school at lunchtime.'"

Shortly after that new player — Wilson Manyacka — took the court, she drove to the right side, and a defender tried to steal the ball.

"She did a spin move and then did a reverse layup," Miller said of Wilson Manyacka. "And I kind of looked at the other coach and said, 'I think that's the one that they were talking about.'

"Girls don't make spin moves and girls don't do reverse layups very well," he said. "And she made it look like it was so easy."

Wilson Manyacka continues to draw such raves when she plays. She tries to take it all in stride.

"I just take that as motivation, seeing that other people or younger kids are inspired by what I do," she said. "So I just want to keep working, and I know it'll get better as I get older."

That type of drive is another of Wilson Manyacka's assets.

"She's just a really competitive girl," said Keith Wang, who is Team Final's coach and a Bullis varsity girls assistant. "I mean, she wants to win every single drill. It could be a layup drill, it could be a shooting drill, a scrimmage. You mix that with the athleticism and the will to win ..."

Usually, players Wilson Manyacka's height or slightly shorter are pegged as post players. But with her ball handling and basket-attacking ability, she's ideally suited to play wing or handle point-guard duties. She did the latter for Monocacy.

Likewise, Wilson Manyacka often brings the ball up the floor, among other things, for Team Final, which is currently practicing for upcoming spring tournaments.

Last summer, she was the travel team's only seventh-grader — the rest were eighth-graders — when it faced a reputedly good team from Florida in the Run 4 Roses tournament in Kentucky. Wilson Manyacka piled up 28 points and helped Team Final take a 34-4 lead by halftime.

"After the game, I was talking to the assistant coach and I said, 'I don't think I've seen anything that special in all the time that I've been coaching,'" Wang said.

Miller, who has coached youth basketball in the area for about 25 years, was asked if he had ever had such a player.

"I've had some good players," he said. "But to her degree, her size — 6-1 girls usually don't play point guard, so she's a little bit different. I had Makayla Daniels, who was an awesome player for us, but she didn't have the size and strength that Ivanna does."

Daniels, a Frederick High grad, is now a standout point guard for Arkansas. Her mother, Wynetta, attended Monocacy's semifinals game and chatted with Wilson Manyacka afterward.

FINDING HER NICHE

It's tempting to figure Wilson Manyacka — the middle child among five siblings — was raised in a household full of standout basketball players. But aside from a younger sister who dabbles in the sport, she's the only serious hoops player in the family. Even her father, Cameroon native Wilson Manyacka, was a soccer player.

"I don't know much about basketball," said Wilson Manyacka, who nonetheless supported his daughter as she delved deeper into the sport, dutifully driving her to countless practices and games.

Looking to try something new around the age of 7, Ivanna got her first real taste of basketball at an after-school program at Montgomery County's Whetstone Elementary School. Like any beginner, she needed a lot of work.

She eventually got serious about her game, though. That was apparent when she wanted a basketball for Christmas. And long before she was helping Mid-Maryland and Team Final to finish on top, she was toiling in the cellar.

"Our house at that time wasn't that big," she said. "So I would go in my basement and dribble."

She joined her first travel team as a 10-year-old. She kept working on ball handling and shooting. She then joined Team Final, which competes in shoe-sponsored showcase tournaments.

Last summer, right after the Run 4 Roses, Wilson Manyacka helped Team Final win a 14U national title at the Nike Tournament of Champions.

"[That] got the girls kind of a lot of exposure to good competition," Wang said. "And there's college coaches walking around at those events as well."

Some of them took notice of Wilson Manyacka, who relishes the chance to face top-notch opponents, figuring the best way to improve is get out of her comfort zone.

"I don't limit myself," she said. "I want to play at the highest level. I want to play against people that are better than me, people that are stronger than me, which is what makes me better, better as a person and a better basketball player."

That's why she often plays against older players. This year, she'll be going up against 15-year-olds in travel tournaments. And while she faced girls her own age with Monocacy this season, the team found a novel way to pit her against more experienced opponents.

"A couple of our coaches — we've got one girl that's in high school now, we've got one girl that just got out of high school, and my assistant coach has been out about five years," Miller said. "We usually try to put them against her a lot of times in practices to try to make her a little better, but she kind of dominates even in the practice."

In Team Final practices, Wang often puts Wilson Manyacka on a team with four reserves and has them face a team comprised of the other four starters.

"She gets mad at me," Wang said. "But I see it in her face, she knows that it's going to make her better."

AN ARRAY OF TOOLS

While Wilson Manyacka's offensive skills might draw the most attention, they aren't the only way she fills up a stat sheet.

"She's averaging 11 steals a game," Miller said. "So she's at the top of the defense, and her instincts to steal a basketball are just amazing. She just anticipates really well."

With guard skills packed into a post player's body, Wilson Manyacka can be handful to contain.

"She's tall, she can shoot, she creates a lot of mismatches because of that versatility," Wang said. "So we use her in a bunch of different ways to take advantage of those mismatches."

And Wilson Manyacka isn't one of those rail thin 6-footers. She has a sturdy frame that she strengthens in the weight room.

"I think my legs are getting stronger," she said. "I also have a lot of bounce ... I can touch the rim, slap the backboard, that type of stuff."

And when she's not driving, she can strike from the perimeter.

"I do have a jumper. It depends on how I feel," she said. "Some games, I'm in a shooting slump. Other games, I could hit like maybe three 3s in a row. It depends on how I'm feeling, but I'm trying to work on consistency."

And of course, she'd like to throw down at least one dunk in a game.

"My goal is for next year," she said.