Most high schoolers spend their summer vacation in New York City at the beach, hanging out with friends, and playing way too many video games.
For one local student-athlete, this was by no means a regular summer.
Josie Pinnock is a rising sophomore point guard on the Christ the King H.S., Middle Village, girls’ varsity basketball team. The 14-year-old standout just had the experience of a lifetime on the international stage.
Pinnock was one of only 10 girls from around the world to qualify for the finals of the Jordan Brand 1v1 basketball tournament in Paris. The event — The One Global Finals at the historic Le Trianon et L’Élysée Montmartre theater — took place the same weekend as the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games, so the buzz in the city surrounding sports was off the charts.
“It was very exciting,” Pinnock said about the one-on-one tournament. “I feel like everybody was watching, and I got to meet a lot of new people and make new friends.”
The native of Springfield Gardens was among the youngest competitors in the field. Participants’ ages ranged from 14 to 19, so Pinnock wound up facing college-level players even though she had just completed her freshman year.
Before the competition, Pinnock was featured in three different billboard photos outside of Madison Square Garden and had her picture in The New York Times for the tournament’s promotional ad campaign.
Pinnock played Catholic Youth Organization basketball at St. Clare, Rosedale, and now plays for the Positive Direction Amateur Athletic Union team outside of Christ the King. Her coach is her mother, JoAnn Pinnock, who is the former head varsity hoops coach at The Mary Louis Academy, Jamaica Estates, and the current chairperson of CHSAA girls’ basketball.
New York City served as a regional Jordan Brand tournament site, so Pinnock had to face some of the area’s top talent to qualify for Paris. She won her first four games to set up a championship bout with former Christ the King teammate Aiyanna Culver.
Culver, who recently graduated, is set to play Division I basketball at Chicago State University. Squaring off at the famous Rucker Park on the border of Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan, the young Pinnock bested Culver to earn a spot in Paris.
Pinnock joined girls from Los Angeles, Chicago, and multiple cities worldwide on the biggest stage. The experience began with Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy leading the girls through a workout.
During the pool-play round, each player faced every other competitor in a shortened game to determine the tournament seeding. Pinnock won a number of her games against some tough competition. In the opening round, she was matched against a talented player from Tokyo, dropped the match, and was knocked out of the tournament. The eventual girls’ winner was Tatiana Griffin from California, who earned a one-year sponsorship deal with Jordan Brand.
Not only was Pinnock representing her school, but she was also representing the entire East Coast of the U.S. With the goal of playing for the women’s national team in the Olympics someday, Pinnock knows she must continue to work extremely hard.
“It doesn’t just come easy,” she said. “Right now, most of the girls were bigger than me and stronger than me, so now I need to get into the gym more and work out.”
Playing one-on-one is completely different than the team-oriented nature of five-on-five basketball. In a full game, players can rely on their teammates. Christ the King is known for consistently playing a team-first style of basketball, which this past season led to a trifecta of championships: diocesan, city, and state championship titles.
Yet, with one-on-one, if your competitor gets by you, it’s a clear path to the basket. A player needs to be on their game every single play to be successful.
“With one-on-one, there’s no defense,” Pinnock said. “If you go by somebody, there’s no help. But in five-on-five, if you get caught up, you can just pass the ball. Five-on-five is much less tiring than one-on-one.”
Pinnock still has three more years of high school basketball to keep improving and developing as a player. At this stage of her career, being able to play high-level basketball internationally gives her an advantage.
Not many young women can say they played among the top 10 teenage players in the world. But that’s exactly what Pinnock did at just 14 years old, while the Olympics were going on in the City of Light.
It was a pretty good summer vacation.
