By Robert Wilson
Germantown High junior guard Madison Booker – the two-time Priority One Bank/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Girls Basketball Player of the Year and 2021 Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year – will be representing the United States on a national team for the second consecutive summer.
The 6-foot-1 Booker was selected as one of 12 players to make the 2022 USA Basketball U17 Women’s Basketball Team after being one of 40 players at the trials for the past week at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The team will return to Colorado Springs June 25-30 before competing at the 2022 FIBA Women’s U17 World Cup July 9-17 in Hungry. Trials participants and coaches were selected by the USA Basketball Women’s Development National Team Committee. Athletes represent the graduating classes of 2023 and 2024.
Booker is one of six players who were on last year’s 2021 USA Women’s U16 National Team which defeated Canada 118-45 for the Americas Championship. Booker started every game for the U16 National Team last summer.
“We are extremely proud of Madison and all of her accomplishments,” Germantown coach Jamie Glasgow said. “We are excited to see her back in a USA basketball jersey again. We cannot wait to watch her compete at that level.
“Madison is a very versatile player. She can play and guard any position on the floor. Madison will do the little things like pass and rebound.”
Booker averaged 16.6 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.1 steals and led Germantown to a 24-7 record and a second straight Girls State Tournament appearance as junior this past season despite facing all sorts of defenses trying to slow her down.
Booker, who is ranked No. 15 in the latest ESPNW Top 100 for the Class of 2023, narrowed her college choices down to nine schools – Mississippi State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Connecticut, Duke, Florida State, Louisville, Oregon, and Texas – on Sept. 18 last year. Booker – whose dad Carlos was a 6-foot-10 center for Southern Miss in the 1990s – has visited Duke and Tennessee.
She averaged 18.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.6 blocked shots and led Germantown to a 13-4 record and the MHSAA Class 6A runner-up finish as a sophomore two years ago. She was first team on the All-Metro Jackson team for the past three seasons.
