Lilly Williams had plans to forego her senior season of basketball, but decided she wanted a taste of the typical Michigan high school experience.
Williams, a top-30 recruit nationally in the 2026 women’s basketball recruiting class according to the 247Sports composite rankings, had been home-schooled throughout her life. However, she has now enrolled to play her senior season at Howell High School before attending college to play at Michigan State.
Williams played with her sister and parents as the coaches for the Firebirds, helping lead the program to a second National HomeSchool Christian National Championship in 2025. But with her sister graduating and parents stepping away from coaching, Williams looked for other options for her final high school season.
“It was a last-minute decision,” Williams said Thursday, July 10, in a phone interview while driving to play in a national tournament with her AAU team, the Michigan Mystics, in Ohio. “The plan was originally to go to Michigan State a semester earlier and kind of take the fall semester off (from basketball).
“… But once I finished my homeschool season as a junior, I was like, ‘this is it for me. I don’t know if I want to be done with high school basketball.'”
Williams and her family looked into Howell due to its proximity to the new house they are building in Pinckney, about 10 miles away from her new school. After conversations with school administrators and her AAU coach, Williams decided to enroll and play one season with the Highlanders.
Along with basketball, Williams is looking forward to the opportunity to take new classes not offered in her homeschooling. The only thing she dreads is the daily early morning start.
“There are a lot more options to take more fun classes, extracurricular classes,” Williams said. “I’m really excited for that. I’m looking into ceramics. I love singing, so I might join the choir because I’ve never had the opportunity to do that.”
Williams, a 6-foot-6 center, will slot in Howell’s frontcourt. The Highlanders finished second in the Kensington Lake Activities Association-West Division in 2025 after winning it in 2024, and lost in the district finals to rival Hartland. Williams enrolled in May and officially began participating in Howell’s youth basketball camps and practices at the start of June.
“We graduated three seniors but we have a good core coming back,” Howell coach Jason Piepho said. “We thought we could be pretty good, but we knew we were going to be different. Didn’t know how different until we found out we were getting Lilly, but she definitely raises the bar for the team.”
Howell has been a “guard-oriented team” over the past few years, Piepho said, led by two-time Livingston County Player of the Year Gabby Piepho, who is entering her senior season and is committed to Northwood. Now, Howell will have a strong post presence in Williams to balance the roster on both ends of the court.
“When I told her that it was official Lilly was coming here, her first response was, ‘Dad, I’m actually going to get open shots,” Piepho said.
Williams will not make the jump from homeschool hoops to Howell alone. Former Firebirds teammate Lyla Valentine, a rising sophomore guard, is also enrolling in Howell. Despite growing up as friends and teammates, Williams said they made the same decision without consulting each other first.
“We had no idea,” Williams said. “So we both ended up going to Howell without talking to each other, so I thought that was pretty cool.”
Unselfish star with Team USA experience
Williams finished up Howell’s first part of the summer in June and then traveled to Colorado Springs to participate in the Team USA U19 team trials. Williams did not make the final 12-girl roster to represent the U.S. in the FIBA U19 Women’s World Cup. But she gained valuable experience playing with other top players around the country, rather than just facing off in AAU.
“My dream is to be able to be a part of USA basketball, so that was something I felt so blessed to be able to be a part of,” Williams said.
Williams described her game as being defense-first. At 6-6, she is a willing defender and shot blocker who makes it her mission to not allow buckets over her head.
“I love defense,” Williams said. “If you are going to shoot on me, you are probably not going to make it.”
Offensively, Williams works in the post, using her size and touch to score around the rim. She likes setting a hard screen to open up a teammate, along with a strong belief in her passing skills.
“I don’t know why, but I love it so much,” she said of screening to create an opening.
Why Lilly Williams committed to Michigan State
Williams’ recruiting process started three years ago. One of the first names that came up was Robyn Fralick, Michigan State’s current coach, who was then at Bowling Green. Williams’ eighth grade coach, Dave Dalton, previously a head coach at Kalkaska High School, told her she fit Fralick’s system at Bowling Green and would be the “best coach” for her.
Williams took a visit to Toledo and Bowling Green with a teammate, but did not have the chance to meet Fralick. But Dalton stayed in her ear about Fralick as a fit. Things changed in 2023 when Michigan State hired Fralick as the school’s replacement for coach Suzy Merchant.
“I got to talk to her, got to know her and I love her,” Williams said. “She’s a great person, great values and family is super important to her.”
Williams also developed a relationship with assistant coaches Dean Lockwood and Maria Kasza, one of Dalton’s former players at Kalkaska.
Now, she will have a chance to play at the next level at home, with her family able to watch her games in person.
“If I had found a coach or whatever that I loved and it was like nine hours away, let’s say, then I might have gone there,” Williams said. “But I was blessed enough to be able to have the coaching staff at Michigan State and be 40 minutes away from where I live.”
Jared Ramsey covers high school sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jramsey@freepress.com; Follow Jared on X or Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lilly Williams jumps from homeschool to Howell HS as state’s No. 1 recruit, MSU commit
Reporting by Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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