All Is Well in Homesick Delle Donne's Delaware Debut

LORETTO, Pa. -- Delaware women's basketball coach Tina Martin let the phrase "triple-double'' creep into her comments following her team's season opener Tuesday night, and once it was out, she couldn't reel it back in. But anybody who had watched the highly anticipated, unusually delayed college debut of Elena Delle Donne wouldn't have needed prodding to envision such feats in the future.

"If Coach says it, then yes, I can, definitely. Whatever I can do to contribute to the team the best I can to my ability, I'll try it,'' said Delle Donne, the redshirt freshman who, on her way back to her favorite sport, had once been the best high school player in the country, then one of its best-known victims of intense homesickness.

"We'll see what the future holds,'' she added.

Delle Donne's present holds this: one game, a 77-64 victory over Saint Francis before a crowd of more than 900 heavily populated with Delaware fans who drove four hours for the game -- and 19 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two blocked shots in 39 minutes. This official coming-out came 10 days after reports surfaced about Delaware's closed full scrimmage against St. Joseph's, in which Delle Donne scored 50 points.

Tuesday, though, was the 6-foot-5 forward's first game that counted since her senior year in high school in Wilmington in 2008, before she ended a dizzying recruiting war by picking Connecticut, leaving the school after two days, transferring closer to home, dropping basketball in favor of volleyball, realizing that she was not actually burned out on her best sport, but actually couldn't stand being so far from her home and family.

Tiny Saint Francis and cozy DeGol Arena was the hottest destination in the early portion of the women's basketball season: ESPN and both Philadelphia dailies were on hand, and the game was streamed live on the Wilmington News-Journal's website. Delaware, likely a middle-of-the-pack team in the Colonial Athletic Association without the newcomer, earned votes in the preseason Top 25 national poll, and Delle Donne herself was an honorable mention All-American choice and second-team all-conference pick even after the long layoff.

Not only was she clearly the best player on the court from the moment she stepped onto it, even the drawbacks in her performance were tough to harp on too much. Delle Donne missed her last eight shots from the floor, most of them jumpers, after hitting five of her first six, but went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line in the second half, when Delaware (1-0) pulled away.

Overshadowing her field-goal percentage was the way she brought the ball upcourt, handled it on the perimeter, drew extra defenders to her and moved the ball to her teammates from everywhere on the floor. She spent far more time on the outside than in the post, even though she had a size advantage on virtually every defender and a quickness advantage on anyone who approached her height.

She was the game's leading scorer while rarely looking for her own shot and while hardly demanding the ball. While showing off skills almost unseen in the women's game from a player of her size, she did not commit a turnover, even as her teammates' nerves and sloppiness led to 20, including each of the Blue Hens' first three possessions.

Delle Donne's showing didn't so much blow observers away as excite their imaginations. That included her coach, who broached the statistical milestone unprompted. "The thing about Elena is that she reads the game. It's very hard to teach people how to read the game,'' said Martin, who envisioned her as a "point center'' on occasion. "I'm putting the ball in her hands as much as possible, and it wouldn't surprise me at all, not to put any pressure on her, that she would get a triple-double someday, because she's such a great passer.''

Delle Donne admitted she was nervous, but not rusty; she had been working out as privately as she could since February, first spoke to Martin about playing again in April and was on the team for good starting in the summer. Connecticut fans, even after the Huskies had gone unbeaten in winning another national title without her, had mixed feeling about her return after the drama of her departure, but coach Geno Auriemma has since wished her well and told her there were no hard feelings.

Judging from all the fans who made the trip from Delaware -- "I was surprised at how much blue was in the crowd,'' she said -- Delle Donne has raised hopes and expectations around the program. Not surprisingly, she also has brought to many minds the ''what-ifs'' of a complicated divorce from one of the indisputably top-two programs in the country, in favor of a mid-major that few outside of its conference believes breathes the same air as the school she turned down.

Delle Donne said once she made up her mind to return home, she regretted it "not at all.''

"It was a crazy two years for me, something I would never want to relive,'' she said. "But I've grown so much in the two years, I can't even describe it. I finally realized how much my family means to me, how great it is to be home, how great the University of Delaware is and how right it is for me.''

Her father, Ernest, was part of the Delaware cheering section. Two other family members who made the Connecticut venture so hard for her were not on hand: her older sister Elizabeth, who has cerebral palsy and is blind and deaf, and her mother, Joan, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Ernest Delle Donne not only spoke to her after her debut, he gave her shooting tips, she said: "My index finger was off a little bit.'' Her parents' well-documented focus on her athletic upbringing, getting her a personal trainer while in her early teens, was one reason that even Delle Donne herself was convinced her about-face on UConn was a result of burnout.

Now that she is in a comfort zone, she and those around her are thinking in superlatives. Delle Donne believes Delaware will be back in the NCAA Tournament, where it last appeared in 2007, and did not rule out a run at a national title: "I'm a dreamer.'' Martin, her coach, declined to mention which players her new star reminds her of, but added: "Think of all the great players who can do everything, and you tell me.''

Martin also believes Delle Donne can't be defined by the perceived level of competition: "I don't think it really matters what league Elena's in, she's gonna see double- and triple-teams. Even if she was at Connecticut, eventually they'd figure it out and they'd see double- and triple-teams.''

The speculation about what might have happened if she had stayed in Storrs, Conn., likely will never end. Nor will the expectations for her and the mid-major school she picked for the most personal of reasons -- and, now that she has actually played again, certainly not the comparisons to other great players, male and female.

"Like Coach said, I'm Elena Delle Donne. I want to make my own route and my own type of game,'' she said, surely fully aware of the unique route she already had taken.