Fencor 1989s

DelleDonne's reputation is growing 'Big girl from Delaware' building an imposing reputation By DOUG LESMERISES Staff reporter 07/11/2004 If you follow girls basketball, or high school athletics or sports of any kind in Delaware, you probably have heard of Elena DelleDonne. You might know that she will be a freshman at Ursuline Academy this fall and that as an eighth-grader she averaged 20.2 points per game, made first team All-State and helped lead the Raiders to the state title. You might know that she is 6-foot-3 and plays like a guard and that she's just 14 years old. You should know that she's very, very good at basketball. You might not know just how good. Anyone in the country who pays serious attention to girls basketball knows Elena DelleDonne, too. And they've never really seen anyone like her. The "big girl from Delaware," they call her. Her home state packed gyms and offered cheers during her first high school season, but without a broader context, differentiating between a great player in a small state and a burgeoning phenom was difficult to do. That process will be clarified this week, when DelleDonne joins 79 other top high school players in the prestigious Nike All-America Camp at St. Louis. She is just the second eighth-grader in the eight-year history of the camp to earn an invitation. The other was Sa'de Wiley-Gatewood, who committed to play at Tennessee before her freshman year of high school and will finally suit up for the Lady Vols this season. Asked if DelleDonne is really one of the best 80 high school players in the nation though she hasn't reached ninth grade, Mary Thompson, director of girls basketball for Nike, laughed at the silly question. Asked if DelleDonne is the best 14-year-old girls basketball player in America, Thompson said, "Absolutely." Accolades for the next ... Ask around, and DelleDonne draws comparisons to LeBron James, who just finished his rookie year in the NBA after a career as the most famous high school basketball player ever. To Michelle Wie, the 14-year-old golfer from Hawaii who has been playing in professional events with men and women. To Diana Taurasi, the recent University of Connecticut graduate considered to be one of the best players in the history of women's college basketball. Yes, DelleDonne has four years of high school basketball remaining. But Duke, North Carolina and Maryland have offered her full basketball scholarships. And all anyone can go on is what they see now. "She is as good a player as I've seen at that age," said Lou Kern, a former women's basketball coach at Fordham University who has been involved in the game for 32 years and is running the AAU tournament in which DelleDonne's team is playing this weekend. "I have not seen a better one. And I saw a lot of players, some of which went on to the WNBA." Included in Kern's list is Chamique Holdsclaw, the former Tennessee star and current WNBA player some have called the female Michael Jordan, and Sue Bird, the former UConn point guard who was the No. 1 pick in the 2002 WNBA draft. "Holdsclaw, when she was in eighth grade, she was 6-1 with nowhere near the overall skills," Kern said. "She wasn't as complete a player as this one. And Sue Bird was a true point guard, but she wasn't nearly as skilled." DelleDonne is squeezing the Nike camp into her busy schedule, and she's proud to say she'll miss only one practice with her 14-and-under AAU team, Fencor, because of the camp. Fencor, based in Fort Washington, Pa., is playing at Kern's Future Stars College Showcase this weekend in New York. DelleDonne will return this evening, fly to St. Louis on Monday morning, attend the Nike camp, then meet her Fencor teammates in Louisiana for the AAU Nationals next weekend. Starting when she was 10, DelleDonne's AAU teams have finished third, fifth, first and second in their age group at nationals. That helps make your name. "Across the country, everyone knows who Elena is," said Aggie McCormick-Dix, coach of the Fairfax (Va.) Stars, the team that beat Fencor in the AAU Nationals championship game last year. "She's the best eighth-grader in the country. I probably have the second-best. But what's so amazing about her is her understanding of the game." That understanding of the game and of herself is why Nike invited a 14-year-old. College coaches can make suggestions, and DelleDonne said the North Carolina staff put in a good word. AAU Nationals are the norm now, but this is DelleDonne's first national exposure on her own. There will be players there old enough to have babysat for her, which is why she'll stay in a hotel with her parents instead of a dorm with the other players. "Her maturity level said a lot for her being invited, not just her basketball ability," Nike's Thompson said. "She is going to go on and do great things. I saw her at AAU Nationals last year, and she made her first six 3-pointers. And she's a big kid. You would compare her to the next Taurasi sort of thing. Taurasi stood out when she was young, but not quite this young." DelleDonne expects that a few of the other players can't wait, either, eager to test the "big girl from Delaware." "I'm sure they'll want to give it to me, but that's fine," DelleDonne said. "I know they're going to be really strong and all, but I think I can hang with them skills-wise. I'm not really nervous. I've been waiting so long, I can't wait to go." The Olympic dream And no one can wait for what she'll do next. Bill McDonough, who runs several AAU tournaments as the owner of Blue Chip Basketball and coaches a Philadelphia AAU team called the Rebels, said DelleDonne will become the next Olympian from this area. He's talking about her making the 2008 U.S. Olympic team, after her senior year in high school. "She's the finest player at that age, male or female, that I've ever seen," he said. "She's three years advanced for her age. And a 6-3 woman is like a 6-9 man in basketball, and you don't see 6-9 players play on the perimeter like she does." Told of all the players with whom she has been compared, DelleDonne was flattered and further motivated, knowing that her work in the gym is paying off. Told of the suggestion of the Olympics in four years, she concurred. "That's one of my biggest goals," she said. "I'd love to be in that." She is setting a goal; the rest of us are getting ahead of ourselves. The current Sports Illustrated includes a "Where Are They Now" section featuring the seven players the magazine in 1986 deemed to be the best boys basketball players in their respective grades, from 12th through sixth. The 11th-grader was future NBA All-Star Alonzo Mourning. The senior and sophomore made the NBA. But none of the top players from ninth through sixth grade played in the pros, and only one even played at a four-year college. But the predictions of amazing things for DelleDonne are based on what she has done so far. Her size sets her apart. Her dribbling and passing skills would be exceptional for a player eight inches shorter. She can score inside, on 12-foot jumpers and from behind the 3-point line. Watching her older brother, Gene, a Salesianum School quarterback who will play football at Duke in 2005, she has a firm grasp on life as a well-known high school athlete. And then there is the way her Fencor coach, Veronica Algeo, rubs her hands over her face and grasps for the right words to describe this player. "She really is everything you would ever wish a player to be," said Algeo, who played college basketball at Ursinus College and is a high school coach. "It's going to be a LeBron James kind of thing. I've never seen anything like it. This girl has got it all. We're not just talking about averaging 40 points per game - it's more than that. "Her work ethic is beyond anything I've ever seen. And her leadership ... it's hard to get NBA players to understand the leadership concept, and to see a 14-year-old kid do it, it's amazing." Welcome to the camp The four-day Nike camp includes morning classes on things like manners, anger management, team-building and NCAA rules. Several guest speakers are planned. But the players are there for the two games a day and the chance to mix it up with the best competition in the country. For DelleDonne, who said she doesn't personally know any of the other players who will be at the camp, it will serve as an introduction. The big girl from Delaware will get a chance to show what she can do. We know that she's very, very good. Reach Doug Lesmerises at dlesmerises@delawareonline.com.