Elena Delle Donne - Basketball

Basketball

Following an outstanding prep career during which she became the most highly-touted women's basketball recruit since Candace Parker, Delle Donne received a basketball scholarship from the University of Connecticut. However, in early June 2008 Delle Donne abruptly dropped out of Connecticut's summer school program after just two days in Storrs. Delle Donne was very close to her family, especially her older sister Lizzie, who has cerebral palsy, and is blind and deaf. She wasn't ready to be separated from her family. Gene, the middle child of the Delle Donne family, would say in a 2012 ESPN story on his younger sister,

Her relationship with Lizzie is huge. It's so close. It's a big reason why she is such a homebody who came home from UConn, because she craves to be around Lizzie and to experience Lizzie grabbing her and sniffing her and just spend quality time with her.

A week after leaving Connecticut, Delle Donne said by telephone from her home in Wilmington that she has "a lot of personal issues to fix. Only my family understands what's going on. Right now I am going to take a long personal break." She took a similar break prior to the 2007–08 season in high school.

On June 2, 2009 Delle Donne announced that she would play basketball for the Blue Hens in the 2009–10 season as a redshirt freshman. In 2012, ESPN writer Graham Hays would say about her return to the sport that "it cannot be complete coincidence that it came the year Gene returned to Delaware and went to work for his dad's company."

Delle Donne had a very productive freshman season. She averaged 26.7 points per game, the third-highest of all Division I women's basketball players. She scored 54 points in a loss against James Madison on February 18, 2010, which was the highest single-game point total by any Division I female basketball player that season. She was named the CAA Rookie of the Week six times, and the player of the week once during 2009–10.

She was voted the CAA's "Player of the Year" and "Rookie of the Year" in women's basketball by CAA coaches, sports information directors and media. This was the first time a player had won both awards in one year since Old Dominion's Lucienne Berthieu did so in 1999. No men's player has ever won both awards in the same season.

In her sophomore season, the team started off well, but then Delle Donne began to develop flu-like symptoms. In a game against Penn State, she asked to be taken out of the game, something she had never done before. After many tests, the doctors finally diagnosed her with Lyme disease. She struggled the rest of the season, but she helped her team reach the finals of the conference tournament and an invitation to the Women's NIT.

Delle Donne was selected to the 2011 USA Basketball Team for the World University Games played August 12–23 in Shenzhen, China. Delle Donne led the team to a Gold Medal with a perfect 6–0 record and averages of 15.7 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists. In the Championship game won by the USA 101–66 over Taiwan, Delle Donne scored 18 points on 8–14 shooting and led the team with 11 rebounds and 8 assists.

As a junior, Delle Donne led the nation in scoring, finishing the season with an average of 28.1 points per game.

On February 16, 2012 Delle Donne scored 42 points in a win over Hofstra, eclipsing the 2,000 point mark for her career.

In another 2012 ESPN piece, Hays said about Delle Donne,

Delle Donne is a basketball phenomenon. She is Larry Bird at Indiana State or Jackie Stiles at Southwest Missouri State. The only difference is that, instead of an average physical specimen doing incredible things, as in the cases of earthbound Bird and diminutive Stiles, she has that same basketball mind capable of seeing three moves ahead and skills the women's game has never seen in such a frame.