AURORA | Only two senior boys and girls basketball players from Colorado received nominations to the annual McDonald’s All-American Games and one of them is from an Aurora-area program in Regis Jesuit’s Hana Belibi.
The list — which included a combined 724 boys and girls players from 43 states and the District of Columbia — came out Tuesday and included Belibi, the leading scorer for a Regis Jesuit girls basketball team that is off to a 7-4 start.
Going into Tuesday night’s home game against Cherry Creek, Belibi — a 6-foot frontcourt player who has committed to play at Harvard — has averaged 18.2 points per game for the Raiders passed the 1,000 career point mark prior to winter break. She is second on coach Jordan Kasemodel’s team in rebounding at 7.9 per contest.
It is not the first McDonald’s All-American Game nomination in the Belibi family, as Fran Belibi was nominated out of Regis Jesuit in 2019. She was selected to the game when it was played in Atlanta.
The other Colorado nominee is Andrew Crawford of the ThunderRidge boys basketball team.
The boys and girls nominated came through a high school coach, athletic director, principal or member of the McDonald’s All-American Games Selection Committee.
The 24-player rosters for both the boys and girls games will be announced on ESPN’s NBA Today program between 3-4 p.m. ET on Jan. 24.
This season’s McDAAG games are scheduled for April 2 at the Toyota Center in Houston.
Aurora has had three previous McDonald’s All-American Game selections in Fran Belibi as well as Grandview’s Michaela Onyenwere and Lauren Betts.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports