Avery Howell’s induction to USC women’s basketball will electrify Trojan fans.  

Howell is ESPN’s No. 18-ranked women’s basketball player in this incoming freshman class. She just played in the McDonald’s All-American Game alongside two other top Trojan recruits. Who wouldn’t be enthused to add a player like her to a program that just made an Elite Eight run? Surrounding USC’s star guard JuJu Watkins with even more great players? Sign everybody up, right?

But ask someone from Boise, Idaho, and they’ll be the first to tell you that merely a “fair amount” of excitement is actually unfair to the greatest high school basketball player their state has ever seen. 

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As she leaves Idaho, she leaves a state behind that will never be seen the same again because of her career. 

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When Howell began her career at Boise High School as a freshman, she wasn’t exactly entering an established, national-scale program with a lot of resources. 

Boise High is at a resource deficit compared to private preparatory high schools such as Sierra Canyon in Los Angeles, where Watkins attended. Howell’s head coach, Kim Brydges, is also a language arts and video broadcast and production teacher at the school. Her assistant coach, Erinn Della, teaches math. They’re not the kind of school that can hire someone to purely focus on being their basketball coach, so these two women balance the classroom and the court.  

“We are not a prep school, we are not breeding these kids to be athletes,” Della said in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “This is extra for Boise, Idaho, for sure.”

 

There had only been one McDonald’s All-American from the state of Idaho before Howell: Destiny Slocum. In contrast, there were two high schools — Long Island Lutheran in New York and Sidwell Friends in Washington — that had multiple McDonald’s All-Americans selected just this year. 

The lack of Idaho representation on an elite basketball stage could have discouraged many people, but it only fired up Howell. She trusted the Boise High program with her high school development, and it paid off.

“Coming from Idaho, it definitely made more challenges, because Idaho’s not really on the map,” Howell said in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “Didn’t stop me at all, but I definitely had a little bit more of a chip on my shoulder going to these camps and just trying to get my name out there.” 

She hopes her story of stardom is the first of many for Idahoans and that scouts begin to take programs in public high schools more seriously, because Boise High produced a player of her caliber. 

“Hopefully me having the trajectory that I did and kind of creating a new path might make that change in the future,” Howell said. 

At this point, Howell has had unique success at getting noticed, but not due to some singular crazy story or unlikely circumstance where she burst onto the scene. 

“She legitimately wakes up every single day at 4:30 [a.m.] to do a full shooting workout before school,” Brydges said in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “A lot of kids I think talk like that, but they don’t actually follow through and do that.” 

That kind of discipline transcends history and circumstances and helped Howell earn the recognition she has received. 

“For high school, we have her for a two-hour practice maximum a day,” Della said. “She’s deciding she’s going to go in and do all this extra work, because she set these giant goals for herself, and she wants to hold herself accountable for it.” 

Howell’s hard work has translated, first and foremost, into a lot of grit. 

“[Howell] is a very physical player,” Della said, “looking to attack the rim and get fouls and get to the foul line.”

That relentless attitude has helped her to become an elite leader, an energetic defender and a tenacious rebounder as well. 

But in addition to her defensive prowess and all the intangibles, Howell can score. She averaged 21.2 points per game this past season on 52% shooting from the field and 81% from the free throw line. 

A big factor in these impressive numbers is Howell’s 3-point shooting touch, which is one of the best in the country. 

“She has made herself into a tremendous 3-point shooter,” Brydges said. “She actually was one of the four that shot during the 3-point shooting contest [at the McDonald’s All-American game].” 

On paper, Howell has performed at a level Boise has never seen; she won Idaho’s Gatorade Player of the Year for two consecutive years, led her team to multiple top-three finishes in the state and is a McDonald’s All-American and an ESPNW five-star recruit. 

But her greatness is perhaps even better exemplified by the stories people tell about her. 

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All discussions about what makes Howell special inevitably lead back to the district championship game during her sophomore year of high school. 

“We were down 3, [Timberline High School] had the ball,” Della said, recounting the final seconds of the title game. “[The opposing] center is running after her, Avery is about to do a layup, she does a pump fake, the center goes flying and Avery goes into her, makes the basket and gets fouled. Then, [she] goes and makes her free throw.” 

Della and Brydges cited this as their favorite memory of coaching Howell, especially due to how instrumental it was for her confidence. 

“That was kind of a turning point for her,” Brydges said. “She was already a very quality player  … but I think getting a taste of the attention and satisfaction of getting that win and having a big part of that win was a pivotal changing point for her.” 

Her former teammates will remember her as a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. 

“She’s not going to give up,” said Sophia Clark, a fellow senior at Boise High who served as a basketball co-captain with Howell, in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “Even if we’re down by a lot, she’s always going to pick her teammates up, she’s going to be truly supportive and a hard worker to where she wants to succeed for herself but also the team.” 

Howell’s encouraging presence is also exemplified by her celebrations.

“We won our district basketball tournament three years in a row, and it just kind of happens on command: After the game my sophomore year, I just jumped into Avery’s arms, and everyone got pictures. It was in the Idaho Statesman. It was everywhere,” Clark said. “Junior year, same thing happened again, we were hugging each other, and all that happened, and then this year we won again.”

Della added that these postgame hugs are not a small thing for Howell. 

“She’s a very good friend and a very physical player but doesn’t really like hugs very much,” Della laughed. “So when she breaks that and is full-on celebrating with anyone it’s special, and you just love it.” 

Hopefully Watkins is one of the next recipients of a postgame embrace after a signature win at Galen Center. 

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So why was USC the next stop for Idaho’s biggest star? 

“I’m just ready to embrace it all,” Howell said. “Being in California, being in L.A., obviously the weather is going to be great, and there’s a beach nearby. Everything about being in California is something I’m excited for and definitely looking for that change.” 

Brydges remembers Howell wanting to be in California as early as her freshman year of high school. 

“Back then, when she was a freshman, she made a comment that, ‘I want to get a Division I scholarship, and I want to play in California,’” Brydges said. “It’s really neat to see her realizing one of these goals that’s been on her bucket list.” 

Howell comes in with a great Trojan class featuring two other McDonald’s All-American freshmen — Kennedy Smith and Kayleigh Heckel — as well as recently crowned national champion Vivian Iwuchukwu. 

Watkins’ commitment to USC made an impression on Howell during her own commitment decision. 

“The trust that [Watkins] had in [USC Head Coach] Lindsay [Gottlieb] and what they could do for that program is just something I knew I wanted to be a part of,” Howell said. “So I’m really looking forward to that and being a part of the culture they started to create this year.” 

Howell’s presence on the team should elevate the interest surrounding women’s basketball at USC. She enters USC with a big heart for growing the game. 

“I honestly don’t think I could ask for a better time to be going into a college,” Howell said. “I’m excited to be a part of the hype around women’s basketball in college right now and to hopefully make it even bigger and create more hype around it too.” 

Hoping to play a big part in growing the game might be bold for some, but it’s nothing new for Howell. 

“She is spending a lot of her time trying to influence young athletes in Idaho,” Della said. “She’s been doing a lot of training and a lot of basketball camps in her spare time with really young girls, and these little babies are starting to become a little fanbase of her.”

Howell already changed Idaho’s basketball landscape, and now she’s ready to take on L.A.