When Michaela Bogans finished signing her letter of intent to play college basketball at Morgan State last Thursday, she handed out perhaps the most sentimental assists of her point guard career — to her brothers.
“I was like 4 years old when I started playing this game,” Bogans said moments after her signing ceremony in the Cross Creek High School auditorium. “It started by me going outside one day and seeing my brothers playing basketball up the street. So I followed them up the street and started playing with them, and they didn’t make me go home. So it all just kind of went from there.”
What ensued was a basketball journey that has led to her being one of the state of Georgia’s top players and arguably the best point guard coach Kim Schlein has seen or coached during her time at the helm of the Lady Razorbacks’ program.
“I’m proud,” Schlein said about watching Bogans make her college choice. “I’ve been blessed with good athletes like Michaela Bogans and [Class of 2020] Jordyn Dorsey. They’ve made my job easy. [Michaela] is a tremendous athlete, and we knew any program that got her was going to have an amazing athlete. She’s right up in the top spot of players that have come through with Jordyn Dorsey as far as the guards go.”
Dorsey, now a standout junior guard at North Carolina A&T, was a senior on the 2020-21 Cross Creek squad that brought home Cross Creek’s first state championship. Bogans was there as well averaging 10 points, four rebounds, 2.2 assists and 2.4 steals per game — as a freshman.
“Her freshman year she took us to the state championship,” Schlein said. “And we’ve had three-in-a-row region championships and we hope to add one more this year. She’s been a tremendous asset to us since the day she first stepped on the court here.”
But it wasn’t Bogans’ freshman campaign that clued people in on the kind of talent and potential she had. Darrin Shine, a former Richmond Academy and Delaware State standout who now tutors young ballers across the CSRA, saw it in her not too long after she started playing those pick-up games with her big brothers.
“She was about 8 years old, and I remember her mom reached out to me and wanted to bring her to my camp, and the first time I saw her, I said, ‘this girl is special. She’s got major potential,’” Shine said.
He called her a “raw” talent who, even without any formal training, looked the part of a budding star.
“A lot of times you can just look at them and see it,” Shine said. “The way they move. The way they dribble. It doesn’t even have to be a clean dribble, but just the way they pound the ball. I saw it in her and said that we can work the rest of the kinks out.”
Another thing that tipped Shine off about Bogans’ upside was the “dog mentality” he said she’s possessed since her elementary school days.
“She always wanted to play with the boys,” Shine said. “Whenever she came to my camp, she’d want to play with the boys, and while she was in the 3rd grade, she was killin’ em and just going at ‘em.”
Shine said the bond between pupil and student was instant, and Bogans was a quick study who took to his tutelage without much resistance.
“We started working on her weaknesses through her career, and as I saw the progress, I tried to help her navigate what she needed to do if she was going to be a high-level player,” Shine said. “I told her that if she did what she’s supposed to do, she’ll be playing at the D-1 level.”
Her signing ceremony made Shine out to be a bit of a prophet.
Bogans chose Morgan State over a top four that included Western Kentucky fellow Augusta-area product and Greenbrier graduate Caitlin Staley is having a solid freshman season. The Cross Creek senior said she chose Morgan State because of the familiarity she saw in the program’s coaching staff.
“Coach Schlein, she pushed me as a player here, and that’s what I want from a coach,” Bogans said. “And when I went to Morgan State, I saw how coach (Ed) Davis and their staff pushed their players to their limits, and that’s what I want.”
Bogans also cited a family atmosphere among the players a that made her feel like she was still in Augusta.
“They made me feel like I was in a home environment,” Bogans said. “The other girls treated me like they were my big sister, and I liked the way the coaches had relationships with their players.”
Bogans likened the relief of making her college choice to “a breath of fresh air,” and said she was “very excited and ready to show them what I can do.” But first thing’s first. Bogans wants another high school ring.
“Cross Creek basketball’s meant everything to me,” she said. “To be able to help us get that first state championship and make history. Everything about how I’ve learned and been trained here has made me know that basketball is what I’m supposed to do. Now, I feel like we’re going back to win state again this year.”
And now, as a senior, the 5-foot-7 floor general is more in charge of the action on the court than ever. No longer a mere facilitator, Bogans averages 20 points, six rebounds, 4.3 assists and 4.6 steals per game. Her 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio shows that she’s reached near mastery level in terms of taking care of the ball in the high school game.
Combined with fellow senior Tahjae Hawes (15.6 ppg) and emerging junior contributor JaNya Wiley (10.8 ppg) Bogans leads a Cross Creek “big three” that could indeed be good enough to lead the Lady Backs to another state title game berth, while also continuing to boost the program’s overall profile.
“Next year without her is going to be a little hard,” Schlein said. “But hopefully her legacy will bring more people here. We just want to continue building, and hopefully with people knowing how we’ve had such great athletes like Michaela come through here, they’ll continue to come. Hopefully it’ll be because of great players like her we’ll continue to other great kids to come in.”
There’s still too much basketball left to be played for Cross Creek (6-3) in Bogans’ senior campaign to be too preoccupied with her eventual absence from the program. After falling 58-47 to an undefeated Thomson squad Friday, the Lady Backs will be in action again Thursday at the Battle for I-20 tournament at Augusta’s Paine College.
And now that the college choice is behind her, Bogans only wants to talk Cross Creek and state championships.
“I feel like this team can win state again because we’ve got more dog in us than we did last year, and maybe even the year before that,” Bogans said. “The height that we have now and just our toughness, I feel like the season’s gonna go real good for us.”
