It’s a misty Thursday night in the city of Newark, Delaware, home base of the eighth ranked University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens women’s basketball team. Fans rush in excitement to pack the Bob Carpenter Center for a tilt between the Lady Hens and Hofstra Pride.
It’s the hottest ticket in the First State.
It has been since November (for the case of one player for a few years now). While head coach Tina Martin has built a respectable program, the never before heard buzz in this community stems from the college game’s biggest secret.
While there are more electrifying players such as Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins and athletically dominating like Brittney Griner from Baylor, no player in the women’s game puts together elements of the game so flawlessly than Elena Delle Donne. She’s basketball’s version of a five tool player if you will.
She possesses a smooth handle unfitting for a 6-5 player, nifty footwork down low and protractor-like form on her jumper. Delle Donne can score with the best of them. She’s actually the best with a nation-leading 28.3 buckets a game. She’s also among the top fifteen in rebounding averaging 10.4.
During the game, a gentlemen in the background expecting to see a Jordan-esque performance, seems to be underwhelmed. He demands to see more than her 16 points at the half. We will though. That’s the thing about Delle Donne’s game. It’s a purists’ fantasy. She kills the defense softly. The willowy 6-5 Delle Donne victimizes opponents with a collection of steady, not quick, step backs, pull ups and drives.
You look up to the score board and see an effortless 41 next to her name, breaking her previous Carpenter Center record, in addition to a game high 15 rebounds, five assists and a couple blocks for good measure. At this point the junior is chasing herself in the record books, owning twelve of the thirteen highest scoring outputs in program history. It’s the type efficient and stat stuffing performance needed to understand comparisons made to Larry Bird by a rival coach.
“That’s definitely a huge compliment,” Delle Donne says. “I’ve also heard Dirk Nowitzki because of his size and his ability to shoot. I started playing when I was four against my brother (Gene, a former quarterback for Middle Tennessee State). Playing against boys was definitely something that helped a lot. But I always worked on my guard skills. My dad (Ernie, who played hoops at Columbia) knew I was going to be tall and he knew that if I was going to be tall with guard skills that would be a pretty versatile player. The post moves came later on.”
What came later on included an unprecedented high school resume spotlighted by the all-time Delaware scholastic scoring record 2,818 points en route to leading Ursuline Academy to four state titles. Even back then the locals filled the gym whenever she played. Along with it came the national player of the year honors, the All-American nods from any publication you can think of and boat loads of mail from pillars like Summit, Auriemma and Stringer.
Ursuline coach John Noonan saw the early signs of Delle Donne’s future greatness as a “tall for her age” second grader.
“Super, super skilled,” he recalls. “You can just see that the kid was born to play the sport. I sort of put here through the paces with some different drills and she was just unbelievable. Everything she did was super smooth, really good technique just a terrific talent. I started making things a little bit more complicated for her. Instead of giving her a good pass, I throw her a bad pass. She would catch the ball, go behind the back with it and then go in and finish.”
Now you’re wondering how the top player in the class of 2008 ends up playing Colonial Athletic Association ball? As much as Delle Donne prefers not to dwell on the past, it’s a part of her story and a key to her bright future.
A couple months after taking another state chip in front of the Carpenter Center crowd, Delle Donne took the usual rite of passage for the top ranked prospects. She waved goodbye to her hometown and enrolled in summer classes at UCONN in June of 2008. Just two days in however she decided to come back home and attend Delaware. Message boards were filled with criticisms of her desire to play the game of basketball. One former UCONN player was quoted as saying, “what a waste” and “she threw it away”.
The sad truth is supremely gifted college student-athletes are given supreme amounts of criticisms for sincere decisions any student can make. Many aren’t privy to Delle Donne’s loving relationship with her sister Lizzie, who has cerebral palsy. This was a main component to her homecoming.
“Homesickness was the decision,” she says. “I needed to be near my family and I realized family was the most important aspect, ahead of basketball, ahead of anything else. Transferring back and being at UD was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
She also addresses the rumors of basketball burnout.
“No, I wouldn’t say that at all,” Delle Donne says. “I love the training aspect of the sport and I love working hard. I love everything about it. It was just burn out of being pulled away from my family. I would definitely say the biggest thing is to kind of sit back and look at what’s most important to you. If I had done that and if I had that knowledge, I would have realized that being near my family is what’s most important. Then I would have been able to see what schools were around here and pick from there.”
“I think she handled it really well,” Noonan says of the attention in high school. “At one point she had to fly to Arizona for a photo shoot, turn around and come right back for a game in Pennsylvania. You’re talking about a kid that’s flying six-thousand miles in less than thirty hours. That’s kind of a difficult thing. There’s pressure along with that for a young kid.”
“I went on a lot of her recruiting visits,” Noonan continues. “The thing that I was kind of surprised with her about was the fact that when she would leave Tennessee, she would leave Connecticut, she would leave Notre Dame or she would leave Duke after a visit, I was always kind of waiting for her to say that’s it. That’s the place or I love that coach or I love that area. I just never got that sense. She just never seemed to have that place that she truly fell in love with.”
During her first year at UD, Delle Donne traded in boxing out and zone defenses for spiking and serves on the volleyball team. She was named to the All-CAA Rookie Team. Her basketball jones wasn’t going to up and leave of course. She didn’t skip a beat her first season on the collegiate hardwood, earning the school’s first All-American nod. Delle Donne put up 25.3 points and 7.8 boards the following season.
While some question the level of competition the Blue Hens face, the nation will surely be put on notice by their star’s WNBA-ready game. What about the supposedly lackluster opponents? Back in November, UD earned a fan court-charging win over then 11th ranked Penn State. Delle Donne put up the usual 40.
There are wins against power conference foes Villanova, Providence and Wake Forest. In December they fought valiantly on the road against 5th ranked Maryland. For any of you bracketologists, as Blue Hen game attendees Vice President Joe Biden (UD alum) and Governor Jack Markell can tell you, the Cinderella slipper looks rather dashing on this crew.
“I always had dreams of this and bringing this type of attention to Delaware,” says Delle Donne. “With the right team and the right supporting cast, I think we’ve been able to do it. We’re making history. It’s amazing that people want to stop and take a picture and want an autograph. It’s a role that I take a lot of pride in and I want to be a great role model for these young ladies and show them what it’s like to be a student athlete.”
Not lost in her once-in-a-generation talent, Delle Donne understands the crucial element of a team void of dissension, jealous of headlines overlooking key charges, rebounds and passes just as important to victories. Lauren Carra, Kayla Miller (high school teammate of Delle Donne), Danielle Parker, Trumae Lucas, Akeema Richards and Jocelyn Bailey are among this selfless group of players.
“They’ve been amazing,” she says. “They’ve been so supportive of me. Even when I was playing volleyball they didn’t speak to me about playing basketball because they didn’t want to put pressure on me. So they’ve been my family ever since. I think we were a young team before and now we have experience and we were able to get two transfers, one from Florida (Lucas) and one from West Virginia (Richards). With the addition of those two and then our team just growing as a whole and getting older together, I think that’s really what’s done it this year.”
With another year of college hoops on the horizon, Delle Donne will surely post records seemingly untouchable. People will have their opinions on shunning the chance to play for national titles annually. But only Delle Donne knows what happiness is for her. Banners atop Gampel Pavilion or 5,000 at the BOB? Storied history or creating new stories? Love from a national audience or a family’s love?
Is she still considered a “waste”? Delaware is a top-ten team in the nation (30-1, 18-0). Delle Donne has a strong chance to take a mid-major school to major heights in the tourney as a third seed (play Arkansas Little Rock on Sunday). She’s excelling in the classroom, stayed true to herself and still among the top three pro prospects in the game. Maybe she would have to take down the mighty UCONN program in the Final Four or title game for this to be a feel good story.
No worries though. With the high school hype, personal attacks and internal anguish long gone, Delle Donne can rest in the fact she did it her way, in the place and in front of the people who have always showed mutual support and admiration.
“Being able to play in front of this hometown crowd is quite the experience,” Delle Donne says. “It’s amazing. I can also head home at any point for a home cooked dinner, hang out with my family and see my sister. So, I have the best of both worlds. I’m playing basketball at a nationally ranked school right now. We’re playing phenomenal but then my family is also right around the corner to enjoy it with me. No regrets. This decision has been the most amazing decision I’ve ever made. We’re achieving some goals here that a lot of people didn’t think we would ever reach. It’s just been so enjoyable and that’s the most important thing.”
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