New Hartford 9th Grader Offered Syracuse Basketball Scholarship

Jim Boeheim may be a little jealous. There's a great young basketball player at a Central New York high school and the head coach of the Orange men's hoops team has already been disqualified in the recruiting process. That's because this outstanding player is a girl.

Syracuse University women's basketball coach Quentin Hillsman isn't wasting time displaying an interest in Kaia Henderson. She's a 9th grader in the New Hartford school system, where she attends Perry Junior High, but plays for the varsity team. And she's a shooting star, so she already has a scholarship offer from SU on the table, according to her father Aurelius.

Henderson is so good, she averaged 25.9 points per game as a point guard for the Lady Spartans varsity team last year--when she was in 8th grade.

She's on the radar of recruiting companies hired by subscribing college teams. One scouting service, @UpstateScout, raved about Henderson on its Twitter feed, saying she "has an ability that you do not often see."

Henderson says her hoops heroes are former Cicero-North Syracuse star Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore and Sue Bird, all of whom played collegiately at the University of Connecticut's legendary program under coach Geno Auriemma.