Kentucky basketball recruit Treasure Hunt already following Matthew Mitchell’s advice
For one of the most highly touted recruits in Matthew Mitchell’s 13-year coaching tenure at Kentucky, this senior season of high school has doubled as a preview of what’s to come.
Treasure Hunt — a 6-foot-1 wing player from Chattanooga, Tenn. — is averaging 24.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.8 steals per game for Hamilton Heights Christian Academy, which is ranked as the No. 2 girls’ basketball team nationally by MaxPreps.com following a 21-1 finish to the regular season.
Hamilton Heights’ schedule has taken them to several states and featured a few nationally ranked opponents. Wherever they’ve gone, Hunt’s team has been a target, said her mother, Hamilton Heights head coach Keisha Hunt, who noted that her five-star daughter has been surrounded by other high-caliber players throughout her development.
“It really prepares them for college, being at a school like Hamilton Heights,” she told the Herald-Leader this week. “It’s not a school where there’s only one good player and they score 30-40 points a game. There are five to six legitimate Division I players, so you have to learn how to play with other good players, which gives them an advantage when they get to college. A lot of high school athletes that come from a team that’s not that good, or they’re the only good player — that’s a hard transition. Because you’re not going to be in the same role.
“And we play a national schedule. … Everywhere you go, you get the best team from that region, and they want to make a name for themselves by trying to beat you. So, it really prepares the girls, mentally, to be able to handle that. Because it’s stressful, and it is physically and mentally draining to know that every single game you play, you have to be on point and ready to go. We don’t have any cupcake games.”
Before she begins her college career, Hunt has more work to do in high school.
Later this month, Hamilton Heights will compete in the National Association of Christian Athletes championships in Dayton, Tenn., and a win in that highly competitive tournament would clinch one of four spots at the Geico nationals the first week of April, the de facto national championships of high school basketball. A few days before Geico nationals will be a trip to Houston for the McDonald’s All-American Game, where Hunt will be Kentucky’s first signee to be featured since Taylor Murray in 2015.
On Thursday night, Mitchell was due to be in Chattanooga for Hunt’s McDonald’s jersey ceremony. The future Wildcat — already ranked as the No. 10 national recruit for the 2020 class by the All Star Girls Report — has continued to work the past few months on preparing herself for the next four years in Lexington.
Following Mitchell’s advice
Hunt has long had the reputation as a versatile offensive player that creates mismatches for defenders with her unique blend of size and skill. Her defense has been a point of emphasis for refinement.
“She’s been doing a lot of work on defense — making sure her body is in the right position, thinking two steps ahead of what’s going on, being proactive instead of just reacting to things,” said Keisha Hunt. “That’s what she used to do on defense — just react to what was going on, instead of her thought process being ahead of the live action.”
Hunt’s increased focus on that end of the floor has been due to Mitchell, who has long placed a great value on defensive ability and effort. Even before Hunt committed to Kentucky in November, the Wildcats coach was giving her pointers on how to improve.
“He’s the main reason that she’s changed her thinking on defense,” her mother said. “He pointed out in some different clips of her — when she did get beat on defense — ‘Look what you’re doing three seconds before you got beat. That’s the reason that you got beat.’ Whether it was incorrect body position or just not being aware of what’s going on around you. She’s watched a lot of game film since then, and she’s really been working on her defense.”
And Hunt has continued to hone her offensive skills. She’s an effective scorer at all three levels — with range stretching beyond the three-point line — and has balanced her ability to get points with an appreciation for those around her.
“She gets a lot of box-and-ones on her, but then they find out that they can’t do that the whole game, because we have other weapons on our team, too,” said her mother, who pointed out that Hamilton Heights has another McDonald’s All-American on the team, Syracuse signee Kamilla Cardoso. “Treasure is not really concerned with trying to score as many points as she can. She understands that the more she passes it to somebody else, that’s going to open up her shots. So she’s experienced a lot of different defenses. And she just works hard and plays with the flow of the game. She doesn’t really force too much.”
Rejoining Rhyne Howard
Hamilton Heights’ national schedule has precluded the Hunt family from attending any Kentucky games in person this season, but they have been paying close attention. Keisha Hunt says they’ve watched pretty much every Wildcats’ game via the ESPN app, and that Treasure has been studying what UK’s players are doing on the court and how she might fit next season.
Kentucky will lose several key seniors off this season’s team, but Mitchell is also due to return quite a bit of talent for the 2020-21 campaign. Leading that group, of course, will be Rhyne Howard, a player that the Hunts are especially excited about teaming up with in Lexington.
Howard, already one of the nation’s best college players, was teammates with Hunt in AAU ball — on a squad coached by Hunt’s mother — and the two have been close friends for years.
Keisha Hunt recalled a game when her daughter — just a middle-schooler at the time — came in and scored nearly 20 points over a five-minute period. Howard and the older girls on the team kept feeding her the ball.
“They didn’t care that she was in the eighth grade,” her mother said. “And Rhyne has never been a selfish kid. She recognizes when someone else is hot.”
Howard and Hunt — highly successful as teammates on the AAU circuit — will get two seasons together at Kentucky, much to the delight of their former coach.
“She’s excited to play with Rhyne,” Keisha Hunt said. “She knows Rhyne’s a good player, and she knows that Rhyne has high expectations. And I know that she’ll keep pushing Treasure and won’t let Treasure slack off. She’ll be like a big sister there.”
Sunday
No. 6 Mississippi State at No. 18 Kentucky
When: 5 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: Mississippi State 22-3 (10-1 SEC), Kentucky 18-5 (7-4)
Series: Kentucky leads 27-21.
Last meeting: Mississippi State won 86-71 on Jan. 6, 2019, at Starkville, Miss.
