Apr. 29—With Trinity Jones of Naperville Central as our latest News-Gazette All-State girls’ basketball Player of the Year, let’s take a look back at how the previous 10 winners have fared in college — and beyond in some cases:
Jackson lived up to the hype in year one in Champaign as the former five-star recruit and 2025 News-Gazette All-State Player of the Year was a day-one starter holding down the point guard spot in ‘s system. An impressive feat for the Chicago native from powerhouse Whitney Young, as Jackson averaged 9.9 points, 5.2 assists and 4.3 rebounds on 41.2/28.2/82.1 shooting with the Illini.
The 2024 and 2023 winner just completed her second season at Colorado State with the Lincoln native putting up 10.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game for the Rams. The 5-foot-10 guard started all 35 games for CSU, which finished with a 27-8 record and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Michigan State with the Spartans prevailing 65-62 against the Rams in Norman, Okla. It was CSU’s first March Madness trip in 10 years.
The former Quincy Notre Dame standout became an everyday starter in year one of the era at Missouri. The 2022 winner and 6-foot guard out of Quincy started all 34 games for the Tigers, who ended up with a 17-17 record after a second-round loss at BYU in the WBIT, as Schreacke produced 7.2 points and 3.3 rebounds per game while averaging a career-high 26.0 minutes.
The 2025 Michigan graduate, who started her career at Oregon State before transferring to Ann Arbor, Mich., to play for the Wolverines after her freshman year with the Beavers, now plays for BC Pharmaserv Marburg of the German DBBL. Kampschroeder, the 2021 N-G All-State POY from Naperville North, appeared in 31 games this past season for BC Marburg, and the 6-1 guard averaged 7.7 points and 2.4 rebounds on 52.6 percent shooting.
The Maine West graduate and 2020 N-G All-State POY parlayed a successful ending to her college career at UCLA — helping the Bruins win the program’s first-ever national championship — into being a Top 10 WNBA draft pick as the Des Plaines native was selected ninth overall by the Washington Mystics. The 6-4 graduate forward Dugalić scored 7.4 points and pulled down 5.5 rebounds per game while starting 34 games on a 37-1 UCLA team and shooting a career-best 34.8 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
The 25-year-old and 5-11 guard has made a home for herself in Italy-Serie A1 with O.ME.P.S. Battipaglia as the 2019 Schlarman graduate — who went on to play three seasons at Notre Dame before completing her career at DePaul (and playing two years in Chicago) — delivered for 15.4 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists on 42.4/25.0/74.0 shooting in 24 games with Battipaglia.
The two-time N-G All-State POY honoree in 2017 and 2018 from Rock Island saw that success follow her to South Carolina, where the 6-1 guard and Chicago native won a national championship with the Gamecocks as a junior in 2022. Beal was later a second-round pick of the Minnesota Lynx in the 2023 WNBA draft and spent training camp with the Las Vegas Aces in 2024.
The 27-year-old LaGrange Park native has carved out a role for herself in the coaching ranks, starting out as the director of recruiting and player personnel at Virginia Tech before landing a job as assistant coach/recruiting coordinator on coach Jill M. Pizzotti’s DePaul women’s basketball coaching staff this past season. Doyle, a two-time All-Big Ten First-Team selection as a point guard during a standout career at Iowa, had a brief WNBA career as a second-round pick of the Indiana Fever in 2020. The Benet grad won the N-G’s All-State POY award in 2016.
The Fremd grad and 2015 N-G All-State POY averaged 14.3 points in four seasons at Duke, including scoring a career-best 18.5 points per game as a senior with the Blue Devils during the COVID-shortened 2019-2020 season. The Hoffman Estates native turned that into becoming a third-round WNBA draft selection of the Seattle Storm and later played professionally for the Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) in the states and overseas in Spain for Casademont Zaragoza and CDB Clarinos Tenerife and also in Poland with VBW Arka Gdynia.
Named The N-G’s top player in the state in 2013 and 2014, the Mt. Carmel alumna finished her Indiana career with 2,364 career points and led the Hoosiers to the 2019 WNIT title. The Mount Carmel native then bounced around professionally in Europe with stints in Greece (Sporting Athens) and Spain (Hozono Global Jairis Murcia) before later returning to the U.S. to serve as an assistant coach at Evansville (2019-2021) and Milwaukee (2021-2022).