2 Minnesota girls basketball stars named McDonald's All-Americans
Minnesota is the State of Hockey but that isn't stopping local hoopers from helping turn the Land of 10,000 Lakes into one of the best basketball player-producing states in the country.
From Lindsay Whalen to Tyus and Tre Jones, Paige Bueckers, Gary Trent Jr. and Chet Holmgren, Minnesota has been a hotbed on the hardwood and two of the best high school players in the country, both from the Twin Cities, were named McDonald's All-Americans on Tuesday.
Olivia Olson of Benilde-St. Margaret's and Liv McGill of Hopkins were named to the prestigious group, an honor previously bestowed on only seven girls from Minnesota.
The short list McDonald's All-Americans from Minnesota:
- Olivia Olson, Benilde-St. Margaret's (2024)
- Liv McGill, Hopkins (2024)
- Tessa Johnson, St. Michael-Albertville (2023)
- Maya Nnaji, Hopkins (2022)
- Paige Bueckers, Hopkins (2020)
- Nia Coffey, Hopkins (2013)
- Rebekah Dahlman, Braham (2013)
- Taylor Hill, Minneapolis South (2009)
- Liz Podominick, Lakeville (2003)
Olson and McGill are ranked 15th and 16th, respectively, and are five-star recruits in ESPN's Hoop Gurlz 2024 rankings. Olson is committed to Michigan and McGill will play for the Florida Gators in college.
Tessa Johnson is a freshman at South Carolina, where she has averaged 15.6 minutes off the bench for the 17-0 Gamecocks. Nnaji is the third-leading scorer at Arizona as a sophomore while Bueckers is in a race with Iowa's Caitlin Clark to be the top pick in this summer's WNBA Draft.
The first girls McDonald's All-American team was in 2002.
Olson and McGill are ranked 15th and 16th, respectively, in ESPN's Hoop Gurlz 2024 rankings.
Phenom 8th-grader in Minnesota averaging 28 points per game
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.