SoCal/NorCal Players of the Week

Two of this week’s honorees are Keith Higgins Jr. from Chaminade of West Hills & Teagan Brown from Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills). Photo: Chaminade Basketball & @JKSelectGbb / Twitter.com.

It’s only two weeks into our player of the week honors for boys and girls hoops (and some of the NorCal schools are playing very limited schedules), but we already have a couple of firsts. We have the first NorCal girls selection that also is based in part on what that girl has done in club events and we have the first NorCal boys choice of someone who has been a NorCal player of the week before in football. Plus, we have a new single-game record holder for boys at Chaminade of West Hills and one of the state’s top girls three-point shooters.

We hope you enjoy this free story on Cal-Hi Sports.com. For our State Top 25 rankings packages for the rest of the boys & girls basketball seasons plus State Stat Stars of the Week, state record updates and special features, please check out our Gold Club membership today. If you’re not a member, CLICK HERE.

Note: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com. We are picking the winners on Monday nights for the rest of the spring season.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week

Teagan Brown
(Oak Ridge, El Dorado Hills) Jr.

Technically, Teagan is being honored for a 27-point outing she had last week in Oak Ridge’s 51-35 victory over Whitney of Rocklin. Plus, she and her team have a tough game on Tuesday of this week against 4-1 Del Oro of Loomis.

Still, the big news for the 5-foot-11 junior guard who can get inside and rebound as well as create and shoot from outside is what’s been happening in her performances for the Jason Kidd Select club team. The man himself, one of the greatest point guards in NBA history who is now the lead assistant coach for the world champion L.A. Lakers, recently agreed on Twitter that Teagan is one of the top juniors in California. That assessment also was confirmed at the Heart of Texas tournament two weeks ago when Brown was hailed as one of the most impressive players there. That was soon followed by an offer from the University of Washington (one of 14 that she now has received).

This is the first-ever girls hoops season in the state in which many of the top non-seniors are splitting their time between their high school and club teams. They normally are not allowed to do that, and in a normal calendar year they would have been done with their high school seasons more than a month ago. Brown’s short, spring season at Oak Ridge, in fact, only has a few more remaining games on the schedule after this week.

We knew about Teagan as a freshman when she was one of 12 named to the Cal-Hi Sports all-state freshman team in 2018. She averaged 16.0 ppg that season and followed up as a sophomore with 17.5 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game.

Perhaps the most head-turning quote about her in recent weeks came from longtime Oak Ridge head coach (and the school’s athletic director) Steve White, who told the Sacramento Bee that Brown is “the most talented player” he’s ever coached. For someone who had Stanford’s Sara James, who led Oak Ridge to the 2010 CIF Division I state title in a memorable upset of Long Beach Poly that snapped that school’s four-year run of winning state titles, saying that about Teagan is not just any complement.

Noah Short is shown in a football jersey after game last season playing for The King’s Academy. Photo: Santa Cruz Sentinel / YouTube.com.

Noah Short
(The King’s Academy, Sunnyvale) Sr.

Girls and boys basketball players doing double-duty for their club teams at the same time isn’t the only unique situation for top high school athletes this spring. There also have been those participating in multiple sports at the same time. Noah is one of those as he went immediately from the football field to the basketball court at The King’s Academy.

Short has been a NorCal player of the week before, which can disqualify someone from being picked again, but in his case that was as a special teams honoree in football. He also was named to the 2019 Cal-Hi Sports all-state small schools football first team as a linebacker.

The basketball numbers that earned Short the nod for this writeup were 34 points scored in a 75-67 win over Pinewood of Los Altos Hills and then 35 points in the next game in a 84-72 triumph vs. the same team. Noah has averaged 22.3 ppg in his first eight games after netting 20.6 ppg as a junior (with a previous career best of 33 points).

In football, Short’s versatility was on display in this last short season that just ended and he’ll almost for sure be on the next all-state small schools squad. His team only won one game, but that win was against Half Moon Bay and the losses were all close to higher-ranked teams. Noah has signed a letter of intent to become a cadet at the U.S. Army Academy in West Point, N.Y.

Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week

Keith Higgins Jr.
(Chaminade, West Hills) Sr.

We’re pretty sure Keith has been near our Stockton home base since he’s the younger brother of former University of the Pacific standout Valerie Higgins, who just became the first player from UOP ever to be taken in the first round of the WNBA Draft.

Keith has had his share of excitement in just the last few days. Last Saturday, when the 10-1 Eagles raced pas Santa Clarita Christian of Canyon Country, Higgins went nuts for 51 points. According to head coach Bryan Cantwell on Twitter, he broke the previous school record of 45 held by both Joe Fabian and Michael Oguine. The coach also mentioned that Keith shot 20 of 28 from the field with six 3-pointers and he had five rebounds.

In his Chaminade career, Higgins is moving up the school’s list with more than 1,500 points. The Lehigh commit is usually in the shadow of his more celebrated teammate, Kenneth Simpson Jr., who already holds the school’s career record and has gone past 2,000 points. We’re sure Kenneth isn’t going to mind that Keith is getting the spotlight this week. Simpson recently committed to Colorado after previously being bound for Arizona.

One of Jessica Grant’s recent college offers came in from Hawaii. Photo: Twitter.com.

Jessica Grant (Mission Hills, San Marcos) Jr.

Get out all of the nicknames for long-range shooting when it comes to this junior guard. Grant is clearly on her way to going down as one of the best three-point shooters ever from the CIF San Diego Section and she’s on track to get her name onto the all-time state lists.

In her games last week, Jessica went 9-of-15 on threes and had 30 points in a 62-44 win against El Camino of Oceanside and then made 7-of-18 and scored 26 points in a 77-34 victory vs. Del Norte of San Diego. She and the rest of her teammates played more limited minutes in the next game, but she still had 19 points in a 66-29 win against Del Norte.

For the season, Grant is shooting 42 percent from beyond the arc and is averaging more than 17 ppg. She hit her career best so far of 10 three-pointers in a 30-point outing earlier this season vs. Mater Dei Catholic. Last year as a sophomore in helping the Grizzlies reach the CIF San Diego Section D2 final (they lost a heart-breaker 60-58 to Serra), Grant averaged 15.7 ppg with 3.5 rebounds and made 140 three-pointers.

This year’s team has started 11-4, but the losses are all to higher-ranked teams (Cathedral Catholic, La Jolla Country Day and Bonita Vista).

Grant has D1 college offers and if she keeps on shooting like she has been this spring, more should be on the way.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports