Elite basketball recruit Finley Chastain leaves national champ Montverde for Faith Family

In March, four-time state champion Andrea Robinson announced that she was leaving Class 6A juggernaut DeSoto to become the girls basketball coach at Oak Cliff Faith Family Academy.

Four-star point guard Finley Chastain, one of the top recruits in the nation in the Class of 2027, will be joining Robinson at Faith Family.

Robinson said Saturday that Chastain has enrolled at the local charter school that competes in the UIL. The 6-0 Chastain, rated the 10th-best player in America in her class by ESPN’s HoopGurlz, attended Lorene Rogers Middle School in Prosper as an eighth-grader before spending her freshman year at national champion Montverde Academy, a prep school in Florida.

“That is going to be a huge addition to our program. It’s going to be amazing,” Robinson said.

Chastain became a legendary recruit before she reached high school. When Chastain was in eighth grade, she trained with a personal coach who also worked with NBA All-Star Julius Randle. By then, she had already worked out with WNBA players and had spoken with former Mavericks star Michael Finley over FaceTime after 12-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul introduced them.

Robinson said when she took the job at Faith Family that “both the boys and girls basketball programs are positioned to be top programs in the country.” The Faith Family boys team won its third consecutive state title this season, but it has received backlash from outsiders in recent years, with some calling the team an “AAU” program because of the elite recruits it has had on its roster.

That list includes McDonald’s All-American Jordan Walsh, who is now in the NBA Finals with the Boston Celtics.

The Faith Family girls competed in 4A this season and lost in the third round of the playoffs, but the school will be moving up to 5A next season in the UIL’s realignment. Robinson plans to play a national schedule outside of district play.

Chastain’s father, Shawn Chastain, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Chastain committed to eight-time national champion Tennessee in eighth grade but announced April 1 that she was decommitting after head coach Kellie Harper was fired. Since the beginning of May, Chastain has posted on X that she has received offers from Mississippi State and 2023 and 2024 national runner-up Iowa and has also been reoffered by Oklahoma State.

Montverde won its third consecutive national championship this season, beating IMG Academy 61-53 in the title game of the Chipotle Nationals. Chastain averaged 5.7 points, 1.1 rebounds and 0.4 assists this season, according to stats on MaxPreps.

Robinson won Class 4A state championships at Fort Worth Dunbar in 2005 and 2007 and then led DeSoto to back-to-back 6A state titles in 2021 and 2022. DeSoto was also the state runner-up in 2019 and 2023.

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