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Sage Hill senior Amalia Holguin, once the youngest player on Kobe Bryant’s famed youth basketball team, has committed to one of the highest-ranked women’s collegiate programs.
The All-County guard on Monday announced her commitment to Texas, which finished 35-4 last season and reached the NCAA Women’s Final Four. The Longhorns were fourth in the final AP Top 25.
“100 percent committed,” Holguin wrote of her commitment on Instagram.
Holguin, who is 5-foot-9, earned first-team All-County honors for the second consecutive season in 2024-25.
She led the Lightning to the CIF Southern California Regional Division 1 title and a runner-up finish at the CIF State championships in Sacramento.
Selected the Pacific Coast League MVP, Holguin averaged 15.2 points, 4.2 assists and 2.4 steals.
In the regional final, she scored 17 of her game-high 24 points in the second half in a 52-41 victory against Windward.
As a youth, Holguin was the youngest player on Bryant’s Orange County-based Mambas team.
Once at Sage Hill, Holguin teamed with Zoie Lamkin, Kat Righeimer, Annabelle Spotts and Emily Eadie to form the Mamba 5, a group of former Mambas players.
The girls lost three of their teammates — Bryant’s daughter Gianna, Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester — along with their coaches Kobe Bryant and Christina Mauser (Edison), Altobelli’s parents John and Keri and Chester’s mother Sarah in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
Pilot Ara Zobayan also died on the flight to a youth basketball tournament.