Westtown basketball star Jordyn Palmer commits to South Carolina and coach Dawn Staley
Palmer will be the first Philly-area basketball star to commit to Dawn Staley's Gamecocks since Camden's Nelly Perry in 2018-19. Staley is a North Philly native who previously coached at Temple.
Jordyn Palmer, a five-star recruit from the Class of 2027, announced her commitment to play basketball at South Carolina on Friday.
The 6-foot-2 senior guard/forward out of Westtown School is the No. 7 ranked player in the Sports Center Next 100 for the Class of 2027 and chose Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks over more than 20 colleges, including LSU, UCLA, Penn State, and Ohio State.
When Palmer, a three-time Gatorade Pennsylvania Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year, arrives in Columbia, S.C., next season, she will become first Philly-area star to play for Staley, a North Philadelphia native and former Temple women’s coach, since Nelly Perry from Camden in the 2018-19 season. Perry is now Camden’s girls’ basketball coach.
In her junior season, Palmer helped lead Westtown School (28-2) to the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association championship game, with an average 23.2 points, 13.2 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 3.3 steals, and 2.5 blocks on the season. She has 1,746 career points and 894 career rebounds.
» READ MORE: Westtown’s Jordyn Palmer — a basketball phenom and highly sought-after recruit — has untapped potential
Following her junior year performance, in June, Palmer was named Miss Pennsylvania Basketball, an honor voted on by fans, coaches, and media that is awarded to the best female high school basketball player in the state.
That same month, Palmer represented the U.S. under-18 national team in the FIBA U18 Women’s AmeriCup in June in Irapuato, Mexico. The U.S. brought home a gold medal, and Palmer was the second-leading scorer in the entire tournament, averaging 18.8 points in five games to win MVP honors.
