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Ava Holman 5’8″ Guard – 2024 

Osseo Senior High School – Q&A

Determined and Destined for Greatness!

 

In todays article we will take a closer in depth look at what makes Ava Holman of Osseo Senior High School a special talent.  As an 8th Grader last season, Ava Holman averaged almost 10 points per game for the Lady Orioles and logged heavy varsity mins., and at times looked like one of the best players on the court on any given night.  You can see a bright future in this young College prospect who is arguably one of the top Point Guard prospects in the state of Minnesotas class of 2024.  Ava can score from all three levels and can create scoring opportunities and make plays for teammates off the dribble . This sets her apart from most of the guards in her class, along with her ability to shoot the ball at a high percentage from well beyond the arc.   As the daughter of a national fitness expert , you can see that Ava Holman is a hard worker and it reflects in her game on and off the court.  This is a trait that you don’t often see in young prospects until later in their high school career.

Ava is a straight A Student Athlete and over the next 8 months you will start to see her trending on many College recruiting boards as one of the regions top players.  She has attended national elite camps for consecutive years which included: Stanford, University of North Carolina, UCLA, Duke, USA Basketball, Elite is Earned and National Youth All American.  Currently Ava is Nationally ranked Top 20 for class of 2024. 

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Take a moment to get to know Ava Holman with this Great Q&A interview

 

Question and Answer:

 

1. Q. Full Name: and what Nickname or Name do you like to go by?

A.   Ava Holman,  Nickname: I go by Ava.

 

2.  Q. What are you most looking forward to this season? 

A. Getting to show everyone how much I have improved in skill and conditioning over the break, getting to use what I have learned to do best to help my team become better, getting to be “energy” of my team and helping them maintain high, positive energy and just getting to play in games entirely.

 

 

3.  Q. Who inspired you as a young athlete?

A.  My dad and Maya Moore.

 

 

4.  Q. What one word describes you?

A.  Determined. 

 

 

5.  Q. What do you give up to play sports?

A. Spending time with friends, after school activities that might interest me and doing things/going places over the weekend.

 

 

6. Q. What is your favorite place to compete?

A. Home court (Osseo)! I am proud to be an Oriole.

 

 

7. Q.  Do you think attitude is a factor in winning?

A.  Yes. In order to win, you have to believe you are able to do so. Teams rarely walk in gyms and say they are going to lose, then end up winning. The best teams always have positive attitudes when playing in a game, no matter how good or bad their opponent is. Having a positive, determined and motivated attitude and mindset helps a lot, because they believe that they will win and aren’t just shrugging their shoulders and waiting for the game to get over with and for them to just lose and go home. 

 

 

8.  Q. How does being an athlete inspire you to do good?

A. Being a good athlete inspires me to do good because I know I can still be so much better. Even if I had a good game, practice or even a good workout, I always think to myself that I can push myself harder to get even better. This takes place not just in basketball, but when exercising too. In both circumstances, I feel like even if I am doing very well such as feeling confident in my shooting or feeling determined to do my best during my workout, I keep in mind that my “best” could always get so much better. By me thinking this, it allows me to push through any struggles, pain or anything else that might stop me because I know that getting better is one of the most important things for me to do.

 

 

9. How does athletics make you a better student or teammate?

A. Being an athlete has helped me become a better student because my grades have to be up in order to play. Of course if i wasn’t an athlete, grades would still be extremely important to me, but I feel as if playing the game I love was on the line because my grades were bad, I would need to make huge changes from that point on. In 7th grade, the high school coaches my teammates and I played for used to make us all (no matter what team) do weekly grade checks. My grades have always been good so I wasn’t worried, but I cant say the same for my teammates. When my coach would call them out for even having a B, it was really embarrassing for them and I did not want to go through that. Ever since then, I have gotten nothing less than a 3.4 (A-) in a class. Sports has also helped me become a better teammates because I have learned a lot of people skills through playing basketball. I have learned how to respect the people I play with and when to use certain words or phrases on and off the court. Sometimes I do mess up though, and might say something my teammate(s) does not like. But I am easily able to improve from that by just using basic social skills and talking through it with them, which also helps our connection as teammates. I feel like over time, I have become a really helpful, encouraging and kind teammate that is always there for anyone that needs me.

 

 

10. Whats the best part of your game?

A. I feel like the best part of my game is my 2-way game. I do exercise a lot, and in reward I have become pretty fast and athletic. By having those skills in my game, I am able to play my best defensive game, then quickly transition into my offensive game faster than other players are. That helps me a lot because most of the time the girl who is guarding me isn’t as fast as I am, so it gives me a huge advantage in getting down the court and scoring, then transitioning straight to defensive faster than she is.

 

 

 

11. What would like to improve on as a player?

A.  I would like to improve my ball handling and driving in the lane. I do already do those 2 things pretty well, but like I said earlier, I can always do better. In specifics, I would like to improve my ball handling skills when being pressed from either full court or at the top of the key. I feel like ball handing is important because by being a good ball handler, you are able to do many different things. Set up plays, drive/drive and kick, create space to shoot and so many other options. For driving in the lane, I would like to get better because i’m not the tallest girl on the court, so by learning how to drive as a smaller guard, it would help me a lot in a lot of different moves I see and want to do.

 

 

12. What schools are currently recruiting or showing interest in you?

A.  As a ninth grader I am still in the early stages of recruiting… my goal is just to keep working hard not only on the court but through my academics to have the most options possible.

 

 

13.  Q. Being a young Student Athlete in this state of Minnesota, Do you feel pressure to be perfect?

A.  No I do not. I will admit, I used to in my previous years of playing basketball because I had seen so many girls so much better than me. That is what determined me to get better. I put in lots of work and trained really hard with many different people. I also visited college camps to learn different skills from those coaches, which really helped me in figuring out what college coaches want in a player and start to work on some of those things to prepare myself. Even after training really hard, I still was a little hard on myself and I still got mad about messing up and missing shots. Once I moved to Osseo, I started getting a lot of support from my coaches there. They helped me realize it’s okay to mess up and miss shots sometimes, and I should just use it as fuel to get even better and work on the mistakes causing me to do something wrong. I really appreciate my coaches there because the have helped me become more of a confident basketball player and they have even helped me realize how important DEFENSE is as well, not just offense. If I wasn’t doing as well on offense, they would advise me to just work my hardest on the defensive end because that is extremely important as well. I do thank them for that realization.

 

 

14. Q.  What would you like College Coaches to know about you?

A. That I am a very good student & teammate and that I will for sure work my hardest for the rest of my basketball career. Working hard and pushing myself has gotten me this far, so by continuing to do that it will be a big factor in helping me improve my skills even more. Wherever I decide to play, I am planning on working extremely hard, staying determined in my goals and bringing lots of energy on the court so I can be the best teammate and individual basketball player I can be.