The top college prospect in New England's senior class is off the board.
Fope Ayo, a 6-foot-5 center and star at Austin Prep, announced her commitment to Michigan on Monday. The Wolverines emerged from a host of high-major suitors and a finalist group that included South Carolina, Miami and Stanford. Ayo, from Methuen, Mass., joins Devin Cosgriff as ESPN Top 100 players in Michigan's recruiting class.
Michigan has reached the NCAA Tournament every year since 2018 (2020 cancelled tournament nonwithstanding), highlighted by an Elite Eight run in 2022. Head coach Kim Barnes Arico, the all-time program wins leader, continues her stellar work on the recruiting trail in recent seasons.
"I think my relationship with the coaches was a really big part of (the decision), and then the team as well," Ayo said. "My visit really was a big deal that helped a lot, and the girls are awesome, so I'm excited to have them as my future teammates."
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The Wolverines had recruited Ayo for multiple years and really picked up their efforts following the last school season. Amidst a group of finalists who have all produced outstanding forwards, Michigan's step-by-step plan and history, with recent alums like Naz Hillmon, impressed Ayo.
"They want to develop me with being a pro in mind," she said. "They want to be able to get me to the point where I can be a pro if I choose to, and so that was big part of it. And then on my visit, they laid out, 'OK, we want you to do this your freshman year,' — they showed it to me, and that was really helpful."
Michigan's academic options also stuck out to Ayo, who's currently taking five A.P. classes. She's considering a double-major in international relations and political science, which is possible at the school. Ayo's AAU and prep school coach, Ushearnda Stroud, also noticed her connecting with the Michigan community.
"I think what makes them unique is actually more off the court — the community that she felt that she would be able to have outside of basketball and outside of academia — that also was encouraging to her," Stroud said. "All of the other schools also had it, but there was something that the connection of their development on the court and what she's able to do within that community that was really appealing to her."
Ayo's commitment is monumental in the context of her stunning rise as a prospect. She didn't start playing basketball seriously until sixth grade.
She can pinpoint different tests along the way. First, it was middle school, when she played because she felt like she had to due to her height, and lost almost every game. Sienna Betts "absolutely destroyed me," Ayo recalls of when she was thrown into the fire on the Rivals 17U team as a 15-year-old. Ayo envisions telling her eighth-grade self about her college basketball future, knowing in eighth grade she just wanted to dance.
But over the last three seasons, Ayo has transformed. She debuted on ESPN's national rankings in summer 2024 and began racking up Division 1 offers. She took another leap as a junior, earning our Class AA Defensive Player of the Year award. By the end of this past grassroots season, Ayo was providing the production to match her hype and athletic gifts. She averaged 11.0 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 60.2 percent from the floor on the Adidas 3SSB circuit.
Now, she'll continue her journey from unknown to a Big Ten stalwart.
"It feels very surreal, because I feel like I've been playing for a while now, but in my mind, it's still not very long, and I'm already here," she told New England Basketball Journal last week. "It's like — it's over, and it's a whole new chapter now and a whole new different experience. And so I think it feels really surreal, but I'm just really, really grateful at the same time. Again, thankful to God, because this is not something that I could have planned on my own at all."
