Ayana Dunning
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Ayana Dunning of Columbus, Ohio, is one of six centers among the HoopGurlz Hot 25 prospects for 2008, just one of the factors that makes this class a highly anticipated one.
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PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
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America has a schizophrenic relationship with its frontrunners. It likes them well enough; it just equally likes to see them replaced. It's that whole thing about familiarity breeding contempt.
"Contempt" is too harsh a term to hang around Elena DelleDonne, but familiarity with her is unquestionable. Not even into her junior season at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Del., DelleDonne has been on ESPN and plastered in national magazines like no girl's basketball player before her. Yet message boards have been fairly crackling the past few months with the question - is anyone better in 2008?
We've even had that discussion here at HoopGurlz.om. We took a long, hard look at April Sykes, the Crawford, Miss., guard with the WNBA-ready body and the nearly WNBA-ready game. OK, we exagerate a little for effect. You have to exaggerate a little about Sykes or any other girl in the 2008 class to come close to DelleDonne. People for years have heralded her as the Second Coming, but we prefer to call her the First Coming, because we've never seen any other female player quite like her - 6 feet 5, with the ability to shoot, off the dribble or the catch, behind and inside the three-point line with stunning accuracy. Not only that, it's possible that, at 6-5, she could play shooting guard at the college level.
So we answer the question of whether anyone other than DelleDonne can be ranked as the No. 1 women's college-basketball prospect in the 2008 Class with another question:
How can there be?
Click Here for the HoopGurlz Hot 25 Rankings for 2008
That's not taking one thing away Sykes, who in most normal years could be a No. 1 ranked prospect. But 2008 is far from normal. It's freakish, that's how good and tranforming a class it could be.
After Sykes, who has strength and instincts as a scorer far beyond her years, there's Ayana Dunning of Columbus, Ohio, a center, for goshsakes, the first of six in our Top 25, the most, by a long shot, in our short history of rankings. Then comes Jasmine Dixon of Long Beach, Calif., who at 6-1 nearly can dunk and has the speed and quickness of most point guards. After her is Brooklyn Pope of Fort Worth, Texas, who at 6-2 definitely can dunk and is equally explosive with the jumper from beyond the arc.
After those five, you have talent galore and all manner of game-changers and difference-makers. It is such a special class that several programs are not being very hasty in offering their multiple, open scholarships in 2007 because they'll certainly want several to offer in 2008. Which is why we can understand the conversation about whether any '08 prospect possibly can be better than Elena DelleDonne.
We understand, but the answer still is a resounding no.
What Are Your Thoughts on the Class of 2008?
Click Here to Visit Our National HS & Prospects Forum
The HoopGurlz.com Rankings Panel:
Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com and the editor-in-chief of Scout Media (www.Scout.com), an online sports network and magazine-publishing company and subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media. He also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girls basketball teams. Glenn previously was a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several national magazines and books. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). He can be reached at hoopgurlz@comcast.net.
Chris Hansen is the National Director of Scouting for Women's Basketball at HoopGurlz.com and Scout.com. He leads the panel that evaluates and ranks girl's basketball prospects nationally for HoopGurlz and Scout.com. Chris has been involved in the women’s basketball community since 1998 as a coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He can be reached at chansen@scout.com.
Nancy Pfaff is Eastern Analyst for Women's Basketball at HoopGurlz.com and Scout.com. More commonly known as Husky Nan on the Internet, where she is considered one of the nation's authorities on women's basketball and has been evaluating and ranking girl's basketball players for years (www.HuskyNan.com). Nancy also is a senior writer for UConnFan.com and moderator for one of the largest sports communities on the Web, the Boneyard. She can be reached at huskynan@yahoo.com.
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