Top Uconn recruit decides to not attend school

#1
L

LadyVols#1Fan

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UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma confirmed the decision Saturday, releasing a statement: "I have recently been informed that Elena Delle Donne has decided not to play college basketball and will not enroll at Connecticut. Everyone at UConn wishes her the best of luck."

Delle Donne had decided to attend UConn last year after an intense recruiting battle with Tennessee.
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Delle Donne Not Coming To UConn -- Courant.com
 
#6
#6
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Delle Donne plans to make a statement Monday, according to Veronica Algeo, her longtime coach at Fencor AAU, who was requested by Delle Donne not to comment further.

A 6-foot-5 guard, Delle Donne became the state of Delaware’s all-time leading scorer last season.

Delle Donne was labeled a “must-have” recruit by college coaches dating all the way back to the seventh grade.
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Delle Donne Decides Not to Attend Connecticut
 
#7
#7
She seems burnt out and ready to move on with life without basketball being part of it. She's a fantastic person and hopefully she will be happy now.
 
#9
#9
im not sure how i feel about this. because even without her he still has a great roster. and moore is even more talented this year. it is anyones guess
 
#10
#10
The last that I read about her, was that she has enrolled at Delaware and will play on the volleyball team!!
 
#11
#11
ESPN's Outside the Lines will feature Delle Donne on Sunday:

ESPN’s award-winning Outside the Lines (Sundays 9 a.m. ET ESPN, noon ESPNEWS) will offer a multimedia enterprise journalism presentation telling the story of Elena Delle Donne, including her first television interview since the 2008 Naismith National High School Player-of-the-Year told University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma in August that she would not be playing basketball for the perennially powerful Huskies, or for anyone else.

Delle Donne, a 6-foot-4 guard whose skills had earned her the nickname the “Female LeBron,” tells reporter Mark Schwarz that she “couldn’t stand” basketball since she was 13. The Delaware native left UConn, where she had committed, and returned home to the University of Delaware where she began playing volleyball, and made the conference All-Rookie team.
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“About age 13 I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore. It’s not fun.’ My teammates used to seem like they were having a lot of fun, and I’d look around like, ‘I should be having fun, too.” -- Elena Delle Donne
“I was trying to force happiness upon myself, which I couldn’t find. I faked it really well because I didn’t want other people to know.” -- Elena Delle Donne
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Outside the Lines Profiles Elena Delle Donne

Video preview link:
OTL Preview: For The Love Of The Game - ESPN Video
 
#13
#13
Parts from ESPN article:
She was provided with a personal trainer from age 7.

She was obsessed with being the best, always afraid someone was working harder than she was. Her skills seemed to be exceeded only by her maniacal work ethic.

"You can't understand it unless you're in my shoes," Delle Donne says. "And that's the thing: You don't understand burnout unless you've been burned out. And it's something you can't even explain. It's just doing something you have absolutely no passion for."

Delle Donne, who turned 19 on Sept. 5, says she's too young to rule out a return to basketball. Yet she says she has not picked up a ball in months and has no interest in watching the game on television unless her friends are playing.

"I'd rather be a face for happiness and doing things that you have a passion for, rather than faking it and pretending like I'm this face of women's basketball when I can't stand the sport at all," she says.
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from Geno Auriemma:

"I can't imagine Elena Delle Donne didn't love playing basketball," he says. "I can imagine she may not have loved the stuff that came along with it. That, 'I got to be Elena Delle Donne,' or, 'I've got to play at a certain level.' Maybe that makes more sense than, 'I hated the game since I was 13.'
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ESPN - Elena Delle Donne happy at Delaware
 
#15
#15
I just watched the OTL about her. One of UConn's former players called her wack, and made some derogatory comments about her which is about what I would expect out of Uconn's program. It was pretty clear she was not interested in being the "face of women's basketball" which I'm sure is why the pressure of a major player like UConn was the straw that broke the camel's back. She's now a volleyball player at hometown Delaware, so she clearly didn't lose her competitive spirit.
 
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