An interesting question was posed in the office the other day.

Is Brenna Wise the best girls basketball player to come out of Butler County?

The Cranberry Township resident and Vincentian Academy senior just led her team to its fourth consecutive WPIAL Class A championship and the Royals are trying to repeat as state champions.

Wise entered the PIAA Tournament having scored 2,192 points and accumulating more than 1,000 rebounds — and that's after being taken out of numerous games early because of lopsided scores.

She was also named Class A Player of the Year for all of Pennsylvania last year.

Those are pretty good credentials, to be sure.

Wise's detractors might argue that she plays at the Class A level for a team made for offense with a quickly-paced transition game.

And Vincentian plays many games against opponents that are overmatched.

And there have been a number of other outstanding girls basketball players around these parts.

Slippery Rock's Jence Rhoads scored 2,170 points in high school and went on to become one of the best players ever at Vanderbilt University.

She tallied 1,100 points, 527 assists and 400 rebounds there, the only player in the history of that program to achieve such a combination.

Mars' Lily Grenci scored 1,718 points and grabbed 1,098 rebounds for the Planets.

She went on to Siena College, where she collected 1,074 points and 624 rebounds.

Butler's Amy Achesinski scored 1,525 points in high school, tallied 1,704 points and 624 rebounds at Mercyhurst College.

Karns City's Courtnay Rattigan scored 1,433 points in high school, averaged double figures in rebounds and played on a team that won a state championship.

So how does Wise stack up to the competition?

Time will tell.

Wise is headed to the University of Pittsburgh, where she will likely add to her legacy.

But will she become a 1,000-point Division I collegiate scorer like Rhoads and Grenci? Will she dominate at her position like Achesinski?

Granted, Achesinski played at a Division II school, but she also led a turnaround in that program's on-court fortunes while she was there.

Ultimately, the player Wise compares with is Rhoads.

Wise has scored a few more points in high school, but deep playoff runs each year enabled her to play in more games.

Rhoads wound up third on Vanderbilt's all-time assists list. She went on to play professional basketball overseas, including an initial stop in Iceland where she averaged 18.9 points and 7.1 assists per game, nearly becoming that league's MVP.

Wise's collegiate and long-term basketball success have yet to be determined.

Until it is, Rhoads' legacy remains unmatched.

But this girl is getting there.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle