Inside Aaliyah Chavez's rise to No. 1 recruit, OU women's basketball lead guard

Freshman guard Aaliyah Chavez had the eyes of the nation in March 2025.

Aaliyah Chavez, the No. 1 player in the class of 2025, was set to announce on SportsCenter the school she would be joining. Chavez was considering OU, along with Louisiana State University, South Carolina, Texas, Texas Tech and UCLA. Sooner head coach Jennie Baranczyk had been recruiting Aaliyah Chavez since she was in eighth grade and made it a priority to get her wearing crimson and cream in college.

Attention is nothing new to Aaliyah Chavez, who spent her entire high school career in the spotlight and earned a plethora of awards, including the Gatorade National Player of the Year, Naismith Player of the Year and MaxPreps Prep Player of the Year. However, Chavez was still uncertain about her decision before choosing the Sooners.

“We were going to do a coin flip on national TV, and people were like, ‘You cannot do that,’” Sonny Chavez, Aaliyah's father, said. “About 10 minutes before we had to get on live TV, she called me back and was like ‘Dad, I’m going to OU.’”

Now at OU, Chavez has gotten off to a hot start, with the Sooners ranking in the top 10 the entire season so far.

In her collegiate debut, Chavez put up 16 points, six rebounds and five assists in an 84-67 win over Belmont before picking up momentum with two 29-point performances against Kansas City and Florida State on Nov. 12 and Nov. 30, respectively. She then recorded 33 points against North Carolina State on Dec. 3. On the season, Chavez leads the Sooners in scoring with 19 points per game while also averaging four rebounds and four assists.

As Aaliyah Chavez prepares to match up with Oklahoma State on Saturday, Baranczyk is focused on ensuring her young guard improves while maintaining her strong mindset.

“I'm looking at her to make sure that she continues to get better, and she continues to learn,” Baranczyk said in November. “And she just brings that confidence and just brings her game.”

That confidence Baranczyk has already noticed in Aaliyah Chavez started at a young age.

‘Never satisfied’

Sonny Chavez instilled toughness into his five children and began training Aaliyah when she was in third grade. His training stemmed from him being picked on as a kid and striving to help children build thick skin. 

While training young athletes in Lubbock, Texas, he said his goal when conducting the workouts is to make his clients want to quit, but Aaliyah Chavez would not back down — a trait her two older siblings did not share. 

“When she didn’t quit the workouts, I knew, obviously, she was a little bit different than most,” Sonny Chavez said. “She has two older siblings that were not willing to do the workouts, so by the time we got to her, we’re not wasting our time.” 

Aaliyah Chavez showed talent early on and put up 26 points in her first game as a third grader playing with a sixth-grade travel team.

With the early success, Aaliyah Chavez and her father decided to ramp up their training and had a mission to prove she was the best in the country.

“That’s where it started — where we started traveling the country, just picking up names off this list of kids that they said were better,” Sonny Chavez said.

Aaliyah Chavez’s journey led her to Monterey High School, and as she kept climbing through her high-school career, other top programs began to take notice. Montverde Academy, Sierra Canyon, DeSoto, Duncanville and others were amazed by Aaliyah Chavez. However, Sonny Chavez said Aaliyah decided that joining one of them would have no benefit for her.

Aaliyah Chavez ultimately led Monterey to the Class 5A Division II state championship during her senior year with 19 points in the finale.

Sonny Chavez, due to his high demands as a trainer, was not pleased with his daughter’s performance, though.

“Whether we win or lose, I’m still critiquing, …” Sonny Chavez said. “I knew there was a lot of basketball left in Aaliyah's career. So (the state championship) was something we knocked off the board, but it wasn’t good enough."

That mindset of always being hungry for more stuck with Sonny and Aaliyah Chavez even in great moments too.

“People, (they would) come by and say, ‘Aaliyah had a bad game,’ and she had 28 points. ... If your kid had 28 points, you would think they were the best thing since sliced bread," Sonny Chavez said. "My kid had 28 points, and it’s a problem. But obviously, I set that standard a long time ago, and it’s not anybody’s fault. But that’s how we are, and that’s how she became who she is because we’re just never satisfied.” 

Aaliyah Chavez's drive impacted more than her father.

‘Great human being’

Jill Schneider, former Monterey head coach, led high school basketball programs for 39 years, but she won her only championship alongside Aaliyah Chavez. 

The championship came in Aaliyah Chavez’s senior year and meant a climax for both of them after the guard averaged 34.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.7 steals during the season.

“I was happy for (Aaliyah), and I was happy for my team,” Schneider said. “That’s the only state championship that one of my teams has ever won, so it was just complete elation.”

However, more than her play to win the championship, Aaliyah Chavez’s character stood out to Schneider.

Schneider said Aaliyah Chavez showed her selflessness during a free-throw drill where each player had to make 20 attempts in a row, and if they failed, they would run down and back full court. Aaliyah Chavez didn’t have to run when she did the drill but chose to do so with the player who made the fewest free throws in a row, which her teammates appreciated.

“It’s really easy (with) a player like that, for teammates to be jealous and get chippy with them,” Schneider said. “And they just didn’t — they loved her. And she was good to them. She was just a really, really good teammate.”

Schneider also recalls a teacher coming up to her to talk about Aaliyah Chavez’s personality and how friendly she was even though that teacher didn’t have her in a class.

“I had a teacher come up to me one time and talk about Aaliyah,” Schneider said. “I said, 'What class do you have her in?' And she goes, ‘Oh, I don’t have her in class. She just stops and talks to me in the hall.’” 

That character Aaliyah Chavez displayed as a human, along with her talent on the basketball court, played a pivotal role in her impact in high school, and she now looks to carry it over to Norman.

‘Positive energy everywhere she goes’

As Aaliyah Chavez continues to settle into her surroundings in Norman, she looks to radiate her positive energy to another level.

In an age where athletes can see every comment on social media, Aaliyah Chavez’s teammates have noticed how the freshman has not let the outside noise shake her usual personality.

“I think she’s done a great job adjusting,” junior forward Sahara Williams said. “She’s still a kid at the end of the day, and I’m so proud of her for how she’s handled it.”

Aaliyah Chavez’s Sooner teammates also have not been afraid to tell her why she was brought in and what they expect from her.

During a practice in the offseason, Aaliyah Chavez tried to get a feel for the team, often passing to the open player instead of being aggressive and shooting. After practice, Williams and redshirt senior guard Payton Verhulst were quick to remind Aaliyah Chavez of her role.

“We didn’t ask you to come in and pass the ball,” Williams and Verhulst said. “We want you to shoot the ball more.”

Even though Aaliyah Chavez has been encouraged to be more aggressive as a Sooner,  she feels confident in taking the team to the next step under Baranczyk. She said at OU’s Class Kickoff in August that she hopes to guide the program past the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2010. 

“We (are) going to the Elite Eight this year,” Chavez said.

The confidence all goes back to Lubbock, Texas, where Aaliyah Chavez’s presence is still felt even when she’s more than 300 miles away.

“You’ve got a really special player and a really special person,” Schneider said. “And she’s full of positive energy everywhere she goes, and I just love her.”

This story was edited by Laurie Jones and Joshua McDaniel.