Year: 2022

Height: 6-7

Position: C

High School: Grandview (CO)

Recruiting Status: Signed with Stanford [press release]

Notes: Born in Spain; her mother, Michelle, played volleyball at Long Beach State; her 7-1 British father, Andrew, played basketball at LIU Post and Long Beach State, was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round of the 1998 NBA Draft, and then played overseas for a number of years.

Recruiting Summary for Lauren Betts

July 31, 2020: announced top nine schools: Arizona State, Baylor, UCLA, UConn, Louisville, Notre Dame, Oregon, South Carolina, Stanford

January 13, 2021: committed to Stanford

Articles and Features

Grandview sophomore ranked fourth-best baller in the nation (9News, 5/6/2020)

Lauren Betts is 6-foot-7, 16 years old, and hasn’t even touched the ceiling yet (Denver Post, 12/8/2019)

Michelle and Andrew Betts met as student-athletes at Long Beach State: Mom was a 5-foot-9 volleyball standout; Dad, a 7-1 center from the East Midlands of England, a second-round draft pick of the Charlotte Hornets in 1998.

“It’s crazy over the last year, how the exposure has gone up,” said Andrew, who played professionally in Europe — Lauren was born in Spain, 16 Octobers ago — for a decade-and-a-half. “The national team obviously was huge with that.

“We’re just trying to keep her feet on the ground. She’s still very young. She’s got a lot of developing to do. It’s still early for her.”

Well-traveled Lauren Betts heads to Chile with USA Basketball (ESPN, 1/11/2019)

Betts has had some big-time basketball mentors such as Ulitzky, her dad and Todd Doherty, who was her first club coach. More recently, she has been coached by two former NBA players, Ervin Johnson, a 6-11 center who also played at the University of New Orleans; and Keith Van Horn, a 6-10 forward who was the second pick in the 1997 NBA draft.

Van Horn started working with Betts last fall, and he was quickly impressed.

“You can tell she’s been around the game with the way she keeps the ball high and makes the right reads,” said Van Horn, who coaches Betts on her Colorado Premier AAU team. “She’s pretty instinctive, with great hands and a feel for blocking shots and knowing how to position herself so she can effectively use her height. She picks things up quickly, and that isn’t always the case with kids her age.

“The next step is for her to develop confidence with her shooting range. She has a nice touch, and I think she will be a solid outside shooter. She has to develop go-to moves and counters, but she has the talent to play at a big-time level. She is already being recruited by a majority of the top-10 teams in the nation.”