Collins: Golden era for women's hoops recruiting in Scranton

Apr. 23—When Penn State's women's basketball team went into the offseason looking for help in the post, it didn't come to our area looking for it.

Head coach Carolyn Kieger and her staff went where college coaches go to build rosters these days, the veritable supermarket of talent known as the NCAA's transfer portal. That's where they found Kylie Lavelle, the 6-foot-2 former Drexel standout by way of Riverside.

The way this offseason has gone around the women's game, though, it seems logical that more coaches like Kieger should be frequenting Northeast Pennsylvania a bit earlier, at least to cut out the middle man.

Everyone around college sports, from administrators and coaches to fans and even agents, have learned a lot about how business gets done thanks to the transfer portal over the last few years. But, there's one lesson the portal is teaching that should be abundantly clear around here at this point: If the Lackawanna League isn't considered a hotbed for major-conference talent in women's hoops, it's at the very least trending that way.

Lavelle became the second area player to commit out of the transfer portal to Penn State over the past six months, joining Dunmore's Moriah Murray, the ex-Dunmore sharpshooter who planned to be Lavelle's teammate at Drexel before a knee injury and a health scare led her to enter the portal before the season. And when Lavelle entered the portal, it raised some eyebrows.

That came after a sterling freshman season with the Dragons, in which Lavelle averaged a shade over 11 points while averaging 21 minutes per game and clearly stood out as one of the best young players in the Colonial Athletic Association.

She just didn't stay there long. Not once she realized she could pursue bigger dreams. And definitely not after she found them to be realistically within her grasp.

"I'd say it surprised me a little bit," Lavelle told The Times-Tribune last week of her first-year success. "But I just played the way I played in high school and AAU, and it just carried over onto the court."

Here's what should stand out about Lavelle's foray into the portal: It's not like the process dragged on.

She had a visit with an up-and-coming Syracuse program, and St. John's brought her in for an official visit, as well. That's three major-conference programs within a month clamoring for her services.

And she's not the only area player in the portal who received that kind of attention.

Scranton Prep grad Cecelia Collins took what would have been considered a significant risk years ago, entering the portal just a few days after Lavelle did despite back-to-back all-Patriot League campaigns at Bucknell. There's no question the safe play for her basketball career would be to stay at Bucknell, where she led the Bisons in scoring last season (14.1 ppg), averaged 11.1 as a freshman the season before, and was playing for a coach who knew her game well — former University of Scranton Lady Royals coach Trevor Woodruff — and ran the offense around her.

But, 6-foot guards who can score and rebound and pass are at a premium even in the major conferences. Which is why, once Collins entered the portal, she paid a visit to Boston College — the program that landed arguably the best women's college player in our area's history, Abington Heights' Amber Jacobs, two decades ago. A few weeks after that, she was in Happy Valley, just like Lavelle, with Kieger hoping to form a Lackawanna League supergroup at the Bryce Jordan Center.

None of that even mentions that former Scranton Prep sharpshooting guard Rachael Rose transferred away from USC Upstate as a freshman who averaged 13.1 points per game, then poured in 17.2 per as a sophomore last season at Wofford after entering the portal. Or, obviously, that Dunmore's standout center, Ciera Toomey, will start her college career this fall at North Carolina.

We've seen star basketball players come through Scranton on the girls' side before. But, not as many as we've seen the last few years. And perhaps not as many as we're going to continue to see as the burgeoning AAU scene in the region continues to pay dividends.

Those top college coaches who came here to see Toomey over the years better get used to the trip. Because while the portal has helped players like Lavelle, Murray, Collins and Rose pursue bigger dreams, there will come a point that one of these coaches learn to beat it to the punch.

DONNIE COLLINS is a sports columnist for The Times-Tribune. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com and follow him on Twitter @DonnieCollinsTT.