Jewel Tunstull has only been at Midwood for three months. She’s been practicing with the Hornets for just about two weeks. But Wednesday, a little less than a month before her first PSAL league game, Tunstull signed a National Letter of Intent to play women’s basketball at Northeastern.
“It’s kind of an interesting thing,” Midwood coach Artie LaGreca said. “She hasn’t even played a game for us yet.”
Tunstull might not be known to those in New York City, but she’s been a commodity on the recruiting circuit for years. The 6-foot-3 center transferred from L.C. Bird (Va.) to Midwood in September with a bevy of Division I interest from schools like Providence, Siena, Towson and LaSalle. Northeastern, coached by Daynia LaForce-Mann, ironically a Brooklyn native, was the choice, though.
“I just felt really comfortable around the coaching staff and the girls on the team,” Tunstull said.
Comfort is an important thing for the senior. She’s already been uprooted unexpectedly. Tunstull, who grew up in Queens and Long Island, was living with her godmother, Mami Little, down in Virginia since she was 13. When Little died suddenly, Tunstull moved in with her mother, Edith Tunstull, in Brooklyn, not far from Midwood.
“It’s going good so far,” Jewel said. “I can’t wait for the season to start.”
She got a jump on the transition process by playing with a handful of Midwood girls, notably Gisell Peguero and Beranda Felder, with the Team Mike Moore AAU team this summer.
“It felt like I knew them forever,” Jewel said. “I clicked with them.”
It went just about the same way when she got to school. LaGreca said there has been absolutely no resentment about a Division I player coming in with the expectations of being a star right away.
“I wasn’t expecting them to take me in that quickly,” Jewel admitted.
LaGreca describes his newcomer as a versatile, power forward/center combination, a girl who can face up and knock down the 15-foot jumper and also one who can play with her back to the basket. With her size, she’s also a solid shot blocker and a more-than-able rebounder. Offensively, though, she’s expected to make a major impact.
“Her ability is all around,” LaGreca said. “She does a lot of things. She’s not a one-dimensional post player. … For the one season we have her, we expect good things. She knows her role is going to be a scoring center.”
Jewel is still getting used to the landscape, though. The only girls basketball team she had heard of when she got to Brooklyn was Murry Bergtraum, the 11-time PSAL city champion. Midwood will see Bergtraum in a scrimmage this coming week and Jewel is sure to get to the Lower Manhattan school via subway, something she is also not very used to. But that has become a positive thing.
“In Virginia, you have to drive everywhere,” she said. “I like it better here.”