Winton Woods senior Chance Gray adds Ohio Gatorade Player of Year honor

On Mar 9, 2022

In a release out of Chicago Wednesday morning, Gatorade announced Chance Gray of Winton Woods High School as the 2021-22 Gatorade Ohio Girls Basketball Player of the Year. Gray is the first Gatorade Ohio Girls Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Winton Woods.

The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court, distinguishes Gray as Ohio’s best high school girls basketball player.

She now is a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year award to be announced later in March.

The 5-foot-9 senior guard led the Warriors to a 25-2 record and the regional semifinals this past season. Gray averaged 26.7 points, 5.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.2 steals per game. A McDonald’s All-American and the District 16 Player of the Year, she is a three-time All-State selection and was named as one of five national finalists for the Naismith Girls High School Player of the Year award.

Gray has volunteered locally on behalf of Ronald McDonald House Charities, Boys and Girls Club of West Chester and youth basketball camps.

“I’ve been coaching in Ohio for 12 years and Chance Gray is the best player any of my teams has played against,” Matt Tolliver, head coach at Milford said in the release. “She dominated the league every single night this year. She makes the right basketball play over and over again, and she handles herself with class, on and off the court.”

Gray has maintained a weighted 4.11 GPA in the classroom. She signed to play basketball at the University of Oregon this fall. Later this month in Chicago, she’ll participate in the McDonald’s All-American Game with Mount Notre Dame’s K.K. Bransford and Mason’s Kyla Oldacre as Greater Cincinnati girls basketball has an unprecedented three McDonald’s All-Americans. While Gray goes to Oregon’s Ducks in the Pac-12, Bransford will next play at Notre Dame and Oldacre in the Atlantic Coast Conference with the Miami Hurricanes.

All three were named Southwest District First Team with All-State teams yet to be chosen. MND’s Bransford was named District Player of the Year and is the current Ohio Ms. Basketball. The 2022 award has not yet been announced.

“I’m very close with K.K. because her and Chance were together from second grade on,” Winton Woods coach Carlton Gray said. “K.K.’s always been a little bit ahead in some areas and Chance was a little bit smaller trying to find her way through. The two of them were on a team playing a year up and that team always played up. K.K. and Chance were the two young girls getting beat up and it toughened them up.”

Carlton Gray’s older daughter Amber was also a McDonald’s All-American and played at Tennessee and Xavier. She now assists her father in coaching the Winton Woods program who went from six to 25 wins in Chance Gray’s one season. She played her first three seasons at Lakota West.

The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport. Gray joins recent Gatorade Ohio Girls Basketball Players of the Year Bransford (2020-21, Mount Notre Dame High School), Madeline Westbeld (2019-20, Kettering Fairmont High School), Jordan Horston (2018-19, Columbus Africentric Early College High School), and Kierstan Bell (2017-18, Canton McKinley High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.