The line of Big Ten teams trying to land NEPA Elite Clark 17U player Ciera Toomey for their women’s basketball programs is getting longer.
The University of Michigan, coming off a trip to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, became the latest school to make a full scholarship offer to the 6-foot-3 Dunmore sophomore.
Michigan’s offer was the second for Toomey on Thursday, the fourth from a Big Ten school and the 15th from a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I team. Of those offers, 13 are for scholarships and 2 are from Ivy League schools that do not award athletic scholarships.
The Wolverines were ranked 16th nationally when they took Baylor to overtime in the Sweet 16 to finish a season in which it went 16-6 overall, including 9-4 in the Big Ten.
Fellow Big Ten members Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State have already extended scholarship offers.
Despite being the youngest player on the team, Toomey was the statistical leader in multiple categories, narrowly over other Division I-bound teammates, on the 2020 NEPA Elite Clark team that won the Hoop Group Showcase League title. She was recognized by Select Events Basketball as one of the top eight players during the team’s appearance in the Live! at the Nook event where it won four of five games to start the current season.
At Dunmore, Toomey was a third-team Class 3A all-state choice as a freshman, then climbed to first team despite a move up to Class 4A in her recently completed sophomore season. She averaged 15.3 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocked shots as the Lady Bucks won the Lackawanna League Division 3 title before having to sit out the playoffs because of COVID-19 protocols.
ESPN.com recently listed Toomey as one of “15 uncommitted women’s college basketball prospects to watch this summer,” with restrictions on in-person recruiting by Division I programs scheduled to be eased.
Toomey revealed an offer from Vanderbilt University earlier in the day Thursday.
The other scholarship offers have come from Boston College, Bucknell, Northeastern, Pittsburgh, Rider, St. John’s, Villanova and West Virginia. The offers to join Ivy League programs came from Columbia and Pennsylvania.
MORE: For additional information on the offer from Vanderbilt earlier in the day, see: https://nepasportsnation.com/vanderbilt-joins-toomey-recruiting-race/.
