That show was part of the first DMV Live girls’ event, a two-day, 20-team recruiting showcase at the Bullis School in Potomac, Md., featuring dozens of college coaches watching local high school programs compete. DMV Live has been a part of the boys’ recruiting scene since 2019, but it took until this summer for the NCAA to sanction events on the girls’ side.

In the tug-of-war of time commitment between girls’ high school basketball and AAU, the event represents a major step forward for the scholastic game. It also provides a new frontier for local girls’ hoops, a chance to catch up a bit to the ever-growing boys’ scene.

“I think we’re finally starting to put the girls on the same playing field as the boys,” Joiner said. “Not only for them to get exposure for the college coaches but also just the platform. You get the media, you get the stats, you get the streams. It makes it easier for people to follow our game.”

On the sideline opposite the Panthers’ bench Friday, a few dozen college coaches took notes and swapped small talk as Pallotti built a sizable lead. Maryland Coach Brenda Frese sat courtside next to her sister Marsha Frese, an assist at Loyola-Chicago. The crowd around them included representatives from Pittsburgh, Boston College, Villanova and Kentucky.

The rules at this event were the same as those on the boys’ side: the college coaches could watch the games, but no verbal interaction with players was permitted. Players could provide contact information through the event, and coaches could call or text. But, for the most part, this event was about seeing and being seen.

“You try to just play, but it’s a nice feeling to look over there and see the college coaches,” Pallotti junior guard Mary Amoateng said. “It makes you want to show off your talents.”

DMV Live director Marc Stern said roughly 60 women’s coaches preregistered to attend the event, and he expected more to come the day of. It was a number he hopes will expand in future years.

By comparison, the fourth iteration of the boys’ event at DeMatha had more than 100 college coaches preregistered for its opening weekend. The group included Virginia’s Tony Bennett, Marquette’s Shaka Smart, Maryland’s Kevin Willard and Virginia Tech’s Mike Young.

Another new arm of DMV Live this year was a boys’ play-in tournament, added on the Thursday before the first weekend. The main event allows for 27 to 32 programs to participate, but Stern said he receives more than 60 applications every year. So, the play-in featured 16 private programs competing in front of non-Division I college coaches to earn the final four spots in the weekend’s activities. Essentially, it provided exposure and the chance to fight for even more.

“I didn’t want to turn down 30 teams,” Stern said. “It’s always about getting as many teams seen as possible.”

While boys’ teams flood his inbox, Stern said he confronted challenges in the early stages of setting up a girls’ event. In recent years, girls’ basketball has been dominated by AAU activity in the summer months. So when Stern pursued some of the area’s top girls’ programs, he had to convince them this was a legitimate and worthwhile reason to get a high school team back together.

“The landscape certainly has changed over the years,” Paul VI Coach Scott Allen said. “We used to go to the VCU team camp at the end of July and there would be 90 teams down there for five days and you’d play 15 games. … But now you go to a team camp for two days and then they’re going to go back and play 40 games with their AAU team. What did you really accomplish?”

Events such as DMV Live can now help carve out a definitive period on the calendar for scholastic basketball in the summer.

“This is a huge, huge deal for girls’ basketball in this area and in the rest of the country,” Allen said. “We have kids that play on incredible AAU teams but college coaches still may not have seen them. So hopefully they’ll come to an event like this, see Paul VI play and say ‘Who’s that kid?’ ”