Prized Recruit Happy Back Home in Delaware.
Late one night in February 2009, the Delaware women’s basketball coach, Tina Martin, received a startling text message from Elena Delle Donne, one of the sport’s most hyped prospects in years.
“Will you open the gym?”
Six months earlier, Delle Donne had left the University of Connecticut in the middle of the night — two days into her freshman year — and returned to her family’s home in Wilmington, Del. She said publicly that she was burned out from basketball, but she knew she was mostly homesick.
Delle Donne transferred to Delaware and played volleyball for the Blue Hens during the fall, and the text message on that February night was the first outward sign that her passion for basketball still flickered. . .
Delaware, which has never won an N.C.A.A. tournament game, will face No. 14-seeded Arkansas-Little Rock in a first-round game in Little Rock on Sunday.
Delle Donne, a contender for national player of the year, has captivated her university and her state unlike any women’s basketball player has before.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/sports/ncaabasketball/prized-recruit-chose-delaware-over-powerhouse-connecticut.html?_r=1&hp
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