A handful of years ago, St. Thomas head coach Ruth Sinn was hot on the recruiting trail at Minneapolis South High School. At the time, she was trying to persuade Morgan Hill, a prolific scoring guard, to stay local and join her then-Division III Tommies program. As any basketball fan in the Twin Cities would know, the Hill family was no stranger to recruiting pitches.
Morgan’s older sister Tayler was an WNBA mainstay after a star-studded career at Ohio State, while her older brother P.J. had similarly played for the Buckeyes in the late 2000’s. Morgan ultimately chose to play at Chattanooga but those trips planted a different seed that eventually blossomed for the longtime Tommies coach.
When it became clear UST would jump from Division III to Division I, the Hill family was one of Sinn’s first calls. This time, it was about Morgan’s younger sister Jade, the floor general.
“I was going to see these games with Morgan, and there was Jade,” Sinn said. “Jade was the point guard even though she was younger and you could tell she had a purpose to her. When we jumped to Division I, I right away I called up Jade and said we are offering scholarships, and I want to bring her into this transition and be one of the faces of our program.”
That’s just how it played out.
Hill had a standout freshman campaign for a program that was collectively the freshman of Division I women’s college basketball in 2021-22. The Minneapolis native rarely left the court, finishing as the Summit League’s minutes per game leader (32.6 mpg) while posting healthy averages in points (13.6 ppg) and assists (3.1 apg) per game. The headfirst debut season helped the Tommies go a respectable 7-21 (4-14) in an unprecedented transition.
To Sinn, it wasn’t surprising that Hill was able to handle that heavy responsibility right away.
“She loves the game, loves to be challenged and to improve and grow, so she doesn’t mind 35 minutes out on the floor,” she said. “If you look at her demeanor it’s what’s the next play, what does the team need and because she has a really high basketball IQ she can really compartalize all the things to put her best foot forward.”
It also wasn’t the first time Hill has been thrown into the deep end with fewer years under belt than most of the other players on the court. She was the starting point guard for Minneapolis South as a seventh grader and the team’s second-leading scorer as an eight grader, all before the age most players first suit up in a high school game.
There were plenty of undaunted moments last season for Hill, such as hitting a game-tying three in regulation and a go-ahead basket in the second overtime – while playing 44 minutes – to push the Tommies past Western Illinois for a big road win on New Year’s Day. The following game she would score 22 points as she and graduate senior Erin Norling (34 points) led UST over North Dakota State, giving the program a three-game winning streak in its first Summit League campaign.
There were also moments such as the Tommies first win as a Division I program against South Carolina State in November, which Hill said brought a type of team-wide, connected happiness that she’ll never forget. The family dynamic may have helped ease that transition to Division I, as Hill said her siblings helped her understand what it would take to succeed at that level.
The fit with Sinn and her staff didn’t hurt either.
“They really believe in me and that’s the biggest thing a player needs to boost their confidence and just make them feel comfortable in choosing a school; knowing your coach believes in you and has faith in you and really wants to grow you as a person and a player,” she said.
Overall growth now becomes the main topic for the hatchling Division I program.
Sinn said that the team simply didn’t know what it didn’t know in its debut season, all while adopting a system and working in a bushel of new players. The Tommies’ top-four minute getters – Hill, Norling, Maggie Negaard and Kaia Porter – were all new to the program. They’ve already begun working in lessons learned in Spring workouts, with an eye toward taking that next step.
“Our goal was to be competitive and I think we did that,” Sinn said. “Whereas in year two we know what we know and now it’s about how we create separation and how we can be more prepared.”
For Hill, there’s a clear vision in mind for how she can continue developing.
“I’ve really been working with my coaches to elevate my game, like my outside shooting and having a quicker pullup and working on different finishes,” she said. “I’m a smaller guard in the league, so being able to finish over six footers would be huge for us.”
The hope for Sinn and Hill is that advances in the young guard’s game help lead to more tear-filled moments at UST. That’s how the Tommies locker room wound up after their season finale, as the tears flowed following a five-point win at Omaha that snapped a 13-game losing streak. Sinn said her staff always say they want to coach players that end the season with tears, whether it’s tears of joy for winning a championship or tears of sorrow because the season is over.
“I think we were in our locker room for over an hour [after the UNO win] because we’d lived the journey,” she said. “All these young ladies bought into what we were asking and they all gave their best to each other. Yes, it was a sad locker room, but it was happy in that we’d done it exactly how we wanted to do it – we were positive, improved and grew.”
Hill and the Tommies will look to keep that journey going as next season draws closer.
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