How Monroe High School’s Junior Guard Built One of the Best Girls Basketball Careers in Georgia History
Monroe High School girls basketball standout KJ Acree can do just about anything she wants on the court and play any position. She may very well be the perfect player, but that’s not because she was simply born that way, according to her mom.
“People see KJ play now and think she just must have come out of the womb playing basketball, and that simply wasn’t the case at all,” Jennifer Acree, Monroe girls basketball head coach, said of her daughter.
You can understand why people thought that.
Jennifer Acree was a talented basketball player in high school, starring at Dougherty High School before going on to play college basketball at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee. She coached college basketball at Valdosta State before becoming head coach at Randolph-Clay High School, where she led the Red Devils to back-to-back state finals and won the championship in her final season in Cuthbert, Georgia.
Now she has returned to the Albany area as the girls basketball head coach at Monroe High School, so you can see why people were ready to anoint KJ Acree a chip off the old block before they ever saw her set foot on the court.
But that wasn’t the case, not by a long shot, her mother said.
“When KJ first picked up a basketball and started playing when she was 6 or 7 years old, she was terrible,” Jennifer Acree said. “She wanted to play, but the natural ability had not taken hold yet.”
A Coach Longer Than She Had Been a Mother
Jennifer Acree admitted that at the time her life had been shaped more by basketball than by motherhood.
“I would tell people back then that I was a coach longer than I had been a mother, which was true,” Jennifer Acree said.
She also understood that as the daughter of a high school basketball coach, KJ Acree was going to be around the game a lot.
Jennifer Acree said the defining moment came when she realized that to make her daughter better, both of them were going to have to work much harder.
“KJ had just turned 7 or 8 years old, and I started her playing AAU basketball,” Jennifer Acree said. “That was my first experience seeing AAU at that level.”
She said the family attended an AAU tournament in Orlando, where KJ Acree’s team was playing, and it was a scene she has never forgotten. The sight of so many young players gave her a clear-eyed realization: The ones who were going to get ahead would be the ones who put the most work in.
“There were thousands of young girls playing AAU there, and I realized right there that if KJ was going to be a good player, then we had a lot of work to do,” Jennifer Acree said. “I knew that I had work to do with my child.”
She also knew that, fair or not, her daughter would always be looked at differently.
“A coach’s kid is going to have a target on her back, so I knew she was going to have to be pretty good to be able to withstand the pressures of being a coach’s daughter,” Jennifer Acree said.
Raising the Goal, Literally
KJ Acree went to work, putting up thousands of shots every day on a goal set higher than regulation.
“I jacked the goal up to 12 feet,” Jennifer Acree said. Regulation height is 10 feet.
KJ Acree worked on her dribbling and shot thousands of shots every day on that 12-foot goal for three years. Then when she turned 10 years old in the fifth grade, things began to change.
“When KJ was in the fifth grade, she turned 10, and she began to transition into a really good basketball player,” Jennifer Acree said.
That’s when COVID-19 hit as well.
“COVID was bad for the world, but it was good for KJ,” Jennifer Acree said.
With no open gyms available, KJ Acree learned to play the same way her mom did as a kid.
“We went old school,” Jennifer Acree said. “She got out in the driveway, and I had her shooting about a thousand shots per day and spending all day doing old school basketball.”
Middle School Dominance
As KJ Acree reached the eighth grade, her overall skill set had developed further, and she was hitting a growth spurt. She began focusing on weight training, which made her a stronger player.
“She was long; she was strong,” Jennifer Acree said. “She became a dominant player that could play any position, and she won two middle school championships. She was averaging over 20 points per game, and her overall body strength became an asset for KJ.
“My job was to make KJ a player who could play anywhere. She could shoot the 3-point shot. She could play the post.”
The post was where KJ Acree started out, until Jennifer Acree realized a change was needed.
“She started out playing in the post because she was so much longer than everyone else, but me being a high school coach and a former collegiate coach, I knew from experience that she wasn’t going to be 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4, so she had to get out of that post position,” Jennifer Acree said.
That’s when the coach realized her daughter possessed several skills and could play just about anywhere on the court.
“I knew from having coached some really great players in my coaching career that KJ had a chance to do a lot of things that those players were able to do, so I wanted to make her a combination of all those players with her different skills,” Jennifer Acree said. “She had post moves, she was able to dribble, and she could shoot a little bit, so I thought she could be a pretty good player with the ability to do a lot of great things. In fact, I thought I may have the perfect player in KJ.”
KJ Acree was a solid player, and opposing teams began to take notice, drawing double teams and sometimes worse.
“She started seeing double and triple teams, and teams were starting to get more physical,” Jennifer Acree said.
That’s when Jennifer Acree realized her daughter needed to get stronger.
“We started working with the weights, and that’s when KJ became stronger and her overall body strength improved,” Jennifer Acree said.
The results showed the following season when KJ Acree faced those double teams again.
“That’s when I saw the dog come out in KJ,” Jennifer Acree said.
3 Seasons, 3 Statistical Milestones
Once KJ Acree reached high school, the combination of her skill set, strength, and basketball IQ all came together, just as her mom had hoped. Her talent was undeniable.
“KJ was dominant once she reached middle school,” Jennifer Acree said. “She averaged 20-plus points per game and led her middle school team to two championships.”
That carried over into KJ Acree’s freshman year.
Despite being a freshman, she established herself immediately as a team leader. In the 2023-24 season, she averaged 24.1 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, four steals, and 2.1 blocks per game as a ninth-grader, leading Monroe to a 22-10 record and a berth in the Class 3A semifinals.
In her sophomore season, she averaged 31.1 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, four steals, and 3.7 blocks per game. She led the Lady Tornadoes to a 24-6 overall record and another deep run in the Class 3A state playoffs, reaching the quarterfinals.
This past season, as a junior, she averaged more than 30 points per game despite facing double teams in nearly every game. She also averaged 12 rebounds, 6.1 assists, four steals, and 2.6 blocks per game.
KJ Acree led Monroe to its best season of her career, a 27-4 overall record, including a perfect 11-0 mark in region play. The Lady Tornadoes reached the Class 3A semifinals for the second time in three seasons.
KJ Acree led Monroe in scoring all three seasons and led Class 3A in scoring over the past two seasons.
She scored her 2,500th career point in February 2026 and finished the 2025-26 season with 2,629 career points. She also became Dougherty County’s all-time leading girls scorer, breaking a 31-year record held by Jen Robinson.
Now KJ Acree is on the verge of becoming the county’s all-time leading high school scorer, regardless of gender. She needs 26 points to tie and 27 points to break the all-time Dougherty County record held by boys basketball standout Pertha Robinson, Jen Robinson’s brother.
31 College Offers and Counting
It comes as no surprise that KJ Acree is being pursued by dozens of college basketball programs.
“KJ has 31 offers right now, and hopefully by June we will be able to get it down to the top 10 choices,” Jennifer Acree said.
When asked whether KJ Acree was leaning toward any school in particular, Jennifer Acree said her daughter isn’t telling, not even to her own mother and coach.
“She said, ‘Mom, I’m going to surprise you,’ ” Jennifer Acree said.
Whichever school signs KJ Acree will be getting more than just a great basketball player. She carries a GPA above 4.0.
In addition to playing for Monroe, KJ Acree plays AAU basketball for Untamed on the Puma NextPro16 Circuit and runs track for Monroe High School.
Looking ahead to her senior season, KJ Acree said she wants to go out on a high note in what will be the final chapter of one of the best careers in Georgia high school basketball history.
“My goal for my last season is to get to 3,000 points and win a state championship,” she said.
