As the mother of a 10-year-old girls basketball player, Makeda Scott wanted to learn more about the recruiting process when the two arrived at the U.S.E. Basketball Family Reunion on Sunday at Baltimore City Community College.

Her daughter, Niahlah Mingo, was among the players in the Reunion's baby ballers game for fourth- through sixth-graders, and with Mingo starting to get more serious about the game, Scott soaked up the information provided by a panel of coaches, former players and recruiting experts.

Mingo plays with the Maryland Lady Tigers, so Scott said the Reunion “was a place to come to to learn more about where she could progress to. She's now driving it, like ‘I want to play more. I want to be on more teams. I want to get more exposure,' and she's like, ‘Where can I go with basketball?' That's where this is a great opportunity and also for me as a parent, because I know nothing about that.”

That was the intention of Reunion's founders, Briana “Breezi” Hutchen and Tyra Hawkes, former St. Frances teammates who went on to play college basketball and are still involved with the game. Hutchen is director of basketball operations for the women's program at Iona and Hawkes is heading to Spain this week for a pro tryout.

While they first thought of the Reunion as a way to reconnect with former teammates and other players from the Baltimore area through alumni games, Hutchen and Hawkes wanted to give back at the same time, so they combined the expert panel discussion with a day of games for players from fourth grade to post-college.

The U.S.E. in the Family Reunion title has a double meaning, according to Hutchen, the 2010 All-Metro Player of the Year who went on to play at Rutgers and Alabama.

“I came up with U.S.E. because I wanted it to be ‘Use basketball,' but I wanted to have three words that I thought really could, I guess you could say, label, what we are, because I think we are United, Strong and Empowered young women of our community and that's what we preach through the entire panel — use basketball to get to wherever you want to go, not just to be a pro athlete.”

Still, most of the young players and their parents were most interested in the college recruiting process. They listened to AAU coaches Sam Walker and Holly Ismail, Bowie State assistant coach Chris Burley and recruiting adviser Tink Butler give their insight while BCCC coach Arthur Fitzhugh addressed junior college opportunities.

They also heard from two other former players, Archbishop Spalding graduate Maggie Morrison, who played on last year's Syracuse Final Four team, and Seton Keough graduate Melanie Williamson, who retained her scholarship at Wagner despite a heart ailment that forced her to stop playing.

Walker, an educational consultant who has tutored such Baltimore stars as Tavon Austin, Carmelo Anthony and Charles Tapper, warned the players that they need to get serious about academics in the eighth grade so they can meet NCAA standards.

“Understand that the academics of this is so important,” Walker said. “If a girl is not on point academically, they don't get in. If you look like Coach Holly [6 feet 4 inches], you've got a shot, but if you're small, no shot at all.”

Scott said she learned a lot from Walker.

“I had no idea — eighth grade, that's when you have to start worrying about grades,” she said. “I had no idea there's an NCAA website that can help a parent work through these things. I also didn't know that some classes you take at private schools can infringe on the courses you need to be eligible [to play NCAA basketball] and I'd rather hear that now with her going into fifth grade than to hear it when she's going into eighth or ninth grade.”

Burley, who has been an assistant coach at several high schools including Western and St. Frances, has seen the recruiting process from both sides. He said college coaches look for five “elements of basketball:” dribbling, passing, shooting, defense and character.

He also warned that a parent can cost his daughter a scholarship. If a parent is intrusive or trying to coach over the high school or AAU coach, a college coach likely won't want to deal with that.

Ismail and Butler, who have helped their own children through the Division I recruiting process, also advised parents not to overwhelm their children with well-intentioned advice when they're off the court.

“I heard something one time that really, really spoke to me, because I'm a coach but I'm a mom first,” Ismail said. “I coached my own daughter [Qalea Ismail, now playing at Princeton], so I kind of deal with a lot of different angles with it: Ultimately, your kid wants to know that you enjoy watching them play and that's it.”

katherine.dunn@baltsun.com

twitter.com/kdunnsun