Two star players of Hyde Park Academy’s girls basketball team are getting full rides to college.
Days before the season started earlier this month, seniors Jazmyne Bynum and Mia Gaines accepted athletic scholarships to Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and Miami Dade College, respectively. Though the pair are the team’s leading scorers, they were nonetheless surprised by the offers.
“When I got the scholarship, I was so shocked,” said Gaines of Southern Illinois University. “The (head coach) was asking me what I wanted to major in and that she liked my game, but I never expected this.”
“It feels great,” said Bynum of Miami Dade. “When (the coach) was explaining how she takes care of the (students) … I felt really excited about this school.”
Last season, Bynum, a guard, recorded 416 points scored, averaging 13.9 per game. Gaines, a center, recorded 353 points scored, averaging 11.8 per game. The two are tied for highest field goal percentage on the team with 45%.
Raised in the North Side neighborhood of Uptown, Gaines didn’t pick up a basketball until the age of nine, when she began playing the game at the Mary E. Courtenay Language Arts Center. The 6-foot-4-inch tall center played her first two years of high school basketball at Disney II Magnet High School before her family moved to Hyde Park in the summer of 2022.
Bynum comes from a family of collegiate basketball players – and one NBA player. Two of her older brothers currently play in college and her uncle, former Crane Prep High School star William Bynum, played for the University of Arizona, Georgia Technical College and three NBA teams.
Despite being nudged in the direction of basketball, Bynum said, her first athletic love was actually soccer. “I didn’t want to follow after my brothers,” she said. “I wanted to make my own name and…
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