Tori Oehrlein, who scored 3,000 points more quickly than any girls basketball player in Minnesota’s history, narrowed the list of colleges she’s considering to six on Thursday.
Tori Oehrlein, Crosby-Ironton girls basketball standout, includes Gophers in her final six colleges
Rising junior Tori Oehrlein said she is still considering playing for these programs in college: Minnesota, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Utah and Virginia Tech.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
August 9, 2024 at 3:56AM
Nearly all of the schools have Minnesota ties. One of them is the University of Minnesota.
Oehrlein, who will be a junior at Crosby-Ironton in the coming school year, cut her list of 30 to these six programs: the Gophers, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Utah and Virginia Tech.
“I built the best relationship with those coaches,” said Oehrlein, who plans to major in sports kinesiology. “It was about building trust in each other for me.”
Oehrlein, a 5-11 guard, is the state’s second-highest-rated recruit in the Class of 2026, No. 46 in the nation in ESPN’s HoopGurlz rankings. She plans to reveal her college decision in October.
Five of her finalists link to Minnesota:
- Liv McGill of Hopkins is a freshman at Florida, which is coached by former Breck standout Kelly Rae Finley.
- Maryland is guided by former Gophers coach Brenda Frese.
- Olivia Olson of Benilde-St. Margaret’s, the Miss Basketball winner this winter, will be a freshman at Michigan next season.
- Two Minnesotans play for Utah: senior Jenna Johnson of Wayzata and junior Gianna Kneepkens of Duluth Marshall. Kneepkens is a friend of Oehrlein’s.
- The Gophers have 12 Minnesotans on the roster.
Oehrlein led Crosby-Ironton to a fourth-place finish in the Class 2A state tournament. It was the Rangers’ second consecutive state tournament appearance.
She had 114 points, 43 rebounds, 13 assists and 15 steals in the Rangers’ three 2024 state tournament games, and she averaged a double-double (35.1 points and 15.1 rebounds per game) for the season. She surpassed 30 points per game for the second season in a row.
Oehrlein reached 3,000 career points in 101 games. She hit the milestone in a game against Providence Academy and Maddyn Greenway in late January. Greenway is the state’s top-ranked player in the Class of 2026, No. 21 on ESPN’s list.
Oehrlein received her first four collegiate offers in seventh grade. After her eighth-grade season, bigger schools from the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences, reached out. It still didn’t prepare her for June 1, when Division I coaches had no limit on contacting her because she had completed her sophomore season.
“I would be talking with one coach, and another would be calling or texting me at the same time,” Oehrlein said. “It was stressful.”
Oehrlein’s future coaches see her at point guard, shooting guard and small forward. That meant Oehrlein had plenty to work on over the summer with the Minnesota Suns AAU team.
“I worked on my shot a lot,” she said. “I had to improve my range, midrange pull-up jumper and get my shot off quicker.”
She said defense also has been a focus, from winter through summer.
“I was always put on the other team’s best player,” Oehrlein said. “My defense has improved a lot.”
Her drive to improve separates Oehrlein from others, Rangers coach Pete Vukelich said.
“Tori has a work ethic like I have never seen before,” Vukelich said. “I have coached three different sports in the past 10 years, and she blows every athlete I’ve coached out of the water.”
Zero losses is a common starting point, but only two teams, Staples-Motley and Fertile-Beltrami, have no state titles.
