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Mike Kraft\/MDN
\nMinot High senior forward Leelee Bell announced her commitment to play women\u2019s college basketball at the University of Oklahoma during a press conference at Magic City Campus on Saturday, Oct. 4. The top-ranked North Dakota recruit in the Class of 2026 was also considering offers from North Carolina, Nebraska, Louisville and Michigan. <\/p>\n
Leelee Bell is taking her talents to Norman, officially committing to play women\u2019s college basketball for the University of Oklahoma beginning in the 2026-27 season, she announced during a press conference at Magic City Campus on Saturday, Oct. 4, in front of friends, family, teammates, members of the Minot High athletics program and members of the Minot community. <\/p>\n
Following a brief video montage featuring some of her highlights, the Minot High standout revealed an Oklahoma Sooners T-shirt covered up by a white hooded sweatshirt. Bell chose the crimson and cream of Oklahoma over Louisville, Michigan, Nebraska and North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went there I felt a spark right after the first day,\u201d Bell said. \u201cThe girls were amazing, the facility, the coaches, just the program in general. They cared for the players. That was the main thing. And I felt at home. I felt safe.\u201d <\/p>\n
Oklahoma was the last school among the list of finalists in which she had narrowed down at the beginning of August to make an official campus visit. Bell and her family made the roughly 1,000-mile trip to Norman for a two-day trip from Sept. 6-7. That was all she needed to be convinced that she had found her college basketball home. <\/p>\n
At the conclusion of her campus visit, Bell informed Oklahoma head coach Jennie Baranczyk that she would be committing to play for her and then proceeded to break the unfortunate news to the other four finalists that she would not be joining their program. Bell said having to tell the other programs she wasn\u2019t committing to them was the most difficult part of the entire recruitment process. <\/p>\n
Despite having already made her decision a month prior to her press conference, Bell said keeping the secret wasn\u2019t difficult. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t very hard,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI think I\u2019m pretty good at keeping a poker face. When people would ask me, I\u2019d just be like, \u2018Maybe. Good guess.\u2019 But it was pretty easy to keep it a secret.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bell\u2019s commitment to Oklahoma officially ends a recruitment process that dates back all the way to when she was in eighth grade in 2021. After starting the first six games coming in off the bench, Bell cracked the varsity starting lineup and would remain a starter through her junior season. She helped lead the Majettes to a state title as an eighth-grader, capping off a 22-4 season by defeating Bismarck Century in the state championship game. Bell was named all-state, all-WDA and named to the state\u2019s all-tournament team. <\/p>\n
Minot High head coach Jason Schwarz has coached her since the beginning, and marveled at her maturity throughout the recruitment process. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt started at an early age,\u201d Schwarz said. \u201cThey started recruiting her when she was an eighth-grader, so this has been a long, drawn out process where it\u2019s been a great experience for her. By the time five years later she\u2019s gone through all of this \u2013 and I can\u2019t imagine all of the contacts she\u2019s had on a daily and weekly basis that it gets overwhelming, so I feel like this is going to be a big relief now that this is off her shoulders. Now she can focus on moving forward. Her maturity level throughout all of this, even as an eighth-grader, was well beyond where she was. At that age, I could compare her to a sophomore or a junior or a senior. Her maturity from the beginning has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
She only got more attention as she continued to put up numbers and accolades for the Majettes. As a freshman, she led the WDA with 10 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game and helped Minot claim the West Region tournament title. The Majettes finished 22-5 that season and placed fifth at state. She again was named all-state and all-WDA and a member of the all-tournament team. <\/p>\n
That offseason is when the recruitment process really started to intensify. She received her first official offer from St. Louis in May of 2023. She would receive 12 offers leading up to the start of her sophomore season, including from Louisville, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The Sooners offered her in September 2023. <\/p>\n
As a sophomore, Bell averaged 26.1 points and 11 rebounds per game as the Majettes ran through the West Region, boasting an undefeated 16-0 mark and claiming both the regular season and tournament titles. The Majettes would finish the season 25-4 and place fourth at state. Bell took home her third consecutive all-state, all-WDA and all-tournament team honors. She was also named the Gatorade North Dakota Girls Basketball Player of the Year. <\/p>\n
During that offseason, Bell received 19 more official offers. She received at least one offer every month from April through September, including six in June 2024. Michigan made its formal offer in May 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun at first and then it gets a little frustrating,\u201d Earnest Bell, Leelee\u2019s father, said. \u201cYou got to 10 offers, and then you get to 20, 30, 40 offers, so it gets a little frustrating but fun at times. For her to see how many schools like her and how good she is, that\u2019s the part I liked about it for her confidence to know that these top schools really like her style and her play. For me, that\u2019s all I care about is schools realizing how good she is.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bell had no trouble separating herself from all of the noise of recruitment when she was on the basketball court. Last season, she averaged 27.4 points, 11.2 rebounds, 1.9 steals and shot 50.6 percent from the field, breaking the all-time Class A\/Division AA scoring record held by Sarah Jacobson at 2,371 points. Leelee Bell currently has 2,404 career points. The all-time scoring record in the state of North Dakota is 3,458 points, held by Maple Valley\u2019s Rylee Nudell. <\/p>\n
The Majettes went 24-3 last year and won the WDA regular season title and went on to finish third at state. Leelee Bell earned her fourth straight all-state, all-WDA and all-tournament team honors and repeated as the Gatorade Player of the Year. <\/p>\n
For her career in a Majettes jersey, her team is 93-16 overall and 65-7 in the WDA. Minot has won two WDA regular season titles, two WDA tournament titles and a state championship. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never coached a ballplayer like her,\u201d Schwarz said. \u201cShe\u2019s such a great kid off the court and such a great student. That\u2019s one of the biggest compliments Leelee gets from people that know her both as a player and a person. They always talk about how great of a person she is and how down to Earth and nice she is and that\u2019s truly who she is. Everyone sees what she does out on the court, but to get to know her off the court is a whole nother deal because it would be very easy for someone of Leelee\u2019s stature who\u2019s had all the success that she\u2019s had to be very arrogant and cocky and those kind of things and she\u2019s not any of those things whatsoever. You need to have a little bit of that edge when you\u2019re on the court, and it\u2019s OK to have it on the court, but off the court she\u2019s so humble and very grateful for the opportunities that she\u2019s had.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bell received her final 12 offers during this past offseason, including one from North Carolina in May. By this time, she was a household name on all of the major recruitment websites. She was the No. 1 ranked player from the state of North Dakota for the Class of 2026. She had recently vaulted all the way up to No. 36 on the SportsCenter Next 100 rankings for the Class of 2026 and Jr. All Star had Bell ranked as the No. 29 recruit for the Class of 2026. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole process at the beginning was pretty chill,\u201d Leelee Bell said. \u201cNothing really stressed me out. But toward last year and early this year, it was a bit more stressful. There were more offers coming in, bigger offers and more people seeing me, but I think I kept it pretty cool and having to tell schools no was pretty hard, but I\u2019m glad I persevered through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In all, Bell received 43 official offers from eight different conferences. She received 13 offers from the Big Ten, 11 from the ACC, eight from the SEC, six from the Big 12, two from the Big East and one each from the A-10, MAAC and Summit League. The other SEC schools on the list were Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and Arkansas, schools she will go up against once she puts on the Oklahoma uniform. <\/p>\n
Bell spent the summer visiting the five finalist schools, starting with Louisville and Nebraska in June, followed by UNC in July, Michigan in August, and Oklahoma in early September before deciding on the Sooners. <\/p>\n
Earnest Bell did his best to let her daughter make her own decision, saying that he wanted her to pick the school that was going to be the best for the style of play that best suited her game. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were making the decision, it came down to where are you going to play and what style of basketball fits your style of basketball,\u201d Earnest Bell said. \u201cYou might like the dorm rooms. You might like the city. You might like something about each school, but then you have to narrow it all the way down to where I am going to fit in style wise. She had to figure out what school fit her style of play. You don\u2019t want to go to a school where they don\u2019t play your style because then you have to figure out a whole new style. It can kind of mess you up. Oklahoma fits her style of play. That\u2019s why I think she chose there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Earnest Bell \u2013 a native of Louisville, Kentucky. \u2013 knows a thing or two about the recruitment process. He played college basketball at Florida Gulf Coast and North Carolina before heading north of the border to finish out his collegiate career with Brandon University, where he played two years and was inducted into the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. During his time with Brandon University, he was a two-time Canadian Interuniversity Sport\/Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union All-Canadian, Great Plains Athletic Conference Player of the Year, GPAC scoring and rebounding leader and a National Tournament all-star. He would go on to play six years of professional basketball overseas in Denmark, Syria, Lebanon, Spain and France. <\/p>\n
Leelee Bell received some friendly advice from one of her future teammates in Aaliyah Chavez, who was the No. 1 recruit in the nation for the Class of 2025. She made her commitment to the University of Oklahoma on ESPN last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll the girls are so nice,\u201d Bell said. \u201cAaliyah Chavez was wonderful. She was very supportive. She did something like this on ESPN, so on an even bigger stage, so she helped me on everything. She helped me with the speech. It was really great.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bell will play for a proven winner in coach Baranczyk, who is in her fifth season with the Sooners. She has led Oklahoma to four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances after nine seasons at Drake University, where she was 192-96. The Sooners have won 20-plus games in all four seasons under Baranczyk and won two conference titles back when they were in the Big 12. Last season, the Sooners finished 27-8 and advanced to the Sweet 16. Baranczyk is a three-time conference coach of the year and a three-time national coach of the year finalist. She played college basketball at the University of Iowa, where she was a three-time all-Big Ten selection, advancing to the NCAA tournament in three seasons. <\/p>\n
Now that Bell has made her decision, she said that it feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders and now she can concentrate on her senior season with the Majettes. She hopes to add some more hardware to Minot\u2019s trophy case before embarking down south to join the ranks of the SEC to continue playing the sport she first started in second grade. <\/p>\n
Bell admitted that leaving the nest for the first time will be difficult at first, but expects to adjust rather quickly. Outside of her time in Minnesota playing for the Minnesota Stars AAU program during the offseason, Bell hasn\u2019t ventured much outside of the state. But she\u2019s grateful for the opportunity to represent her city and her state at the national level and will forever be thankful for those she\u2019s gotten to know during her time in the Magic City. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll always remember the people,\u201d Bell said. \u201cThe young girls, the young boys, my friends, my family, everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
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