Elena Delle Donne & April Sykes
Back to the Beginning
By Glenn NelsonHoopGurlz Publisher
Posted Tue, 08/21/2007 - 23:18 After a year, Elena Delle Donne and April Sykes still lead a dynamic and vastly talented 2008 class.
PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
A year's time, a year's journey. In a year, we've been everywhere.
And nowhere.
Because after all the shouting. All the takeoffs and landings. All the tipoffs and final buzzers. All the sprints. All the extra free throws. After all of that, we are back to the beginning.
No. 1, Elena Delle Donne of Wilmington, Del.
No. 2, April Sykes of Crawford, Miss.
After a year, they still are the truthes that prove self-evident. Today we release our HoopGurlz Hundred for 2008. Those two head the list, just as they did when we posted our 2008 rankings for the first time a year ago.
Click here for updated 2008 player rankings
Elena Delle Donne
Delle Donne is 6 feet 4 and the high-school nation's best shooter. Never before have those two qualities appeared in the same package. She took the summer off from club basketball and gave up a spot on the USA U19 team, but before she began her hoops furlough, Delle Donne led a team to the most prestigious title of the spring evaluation period.
Sykes is 5-11, spent the spring and summer with an injured and wrapped or braced shooting hand and still was chased by defenses like bounty hunters after Public Enemy No. 1. She is as physically strong a guard which has come along on this level, explosive and skilled. Sykes handles the ball like she dribbled it on gravel during her childhood, which she did, and shoots it and passes it with equal precision.
The parade of talent that follows those two is what has changed in a year. Glory Johnson of Knoxville, Tenn., is No. 3; Amber Gray, who is from Cincinnati, Ohio, but headed to Knoxville to play for Tennessee, is No. 4. Maryland-bound Lynetta Kizer of Dumfries, Va., is the top-ranked post and fifth overall. Nneka Ogwumike of Cy-Fair, Texas, is the No. 1 forward and No. 6 overall.
Atonye Nyingifa
Cierra Bravard of Sandusky, Ohio, a shot-maker extraordinaire at 6-5, is new to our rankings, entering at a lofty No. 7. Another Tennesee commit, Shekinna Stricklen of Morrilton, Ark., follows at No. 8; fresh off a searing summer, Brooklyn Pope of Dallas, Texas, returns to the top 10 at No. 9, and Caroline Doty, the Connecticut commit from Doylestown, Pa., remains at No. 10. Our top-ranked point guard remains Shay Selby, a Duke commit from Cleveland, Ohio, who weighs in at No. 13 overall.
We've long considered the top of this class to be extraordinarily talented and the 28 prospects who earned the highest rating of five stars to be among the brightest groups to have come along. A couple newcomers to our rankings made that luminous cut - Liz Lay of Oklahoma City, Okla., at No. 18 and UCLA-bound Atonye Nyingifa of Redondo Beach, Calif., right behind at No. 19.
The states of California and Ohio tied for the most prospects in the HoopGurlz Hundred with 11. Texas and Virginia have seven; Georgia and New York each have six.
As usual, we ranked and rated only the prospects we actually saw. That doesn't mean we saw everyone, but we tried to see as many as possible. We always are open to seeing other prospects, and revising and expanding our rankings.
Click Here for a Guide to HoopGurlz Rankings and Ratings
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The HoopGurlz.com Ranking Panel
Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams. Glenn previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). For more on Glenn's World, click here. He can be reached at glenn@hoopgurlz.com.
Chris Hansen is the National Director of Scouting for Women’s Basketball at HoopGurlz.com. He leads the panel that evaluates and ranks girl's basketball prospects nationally for HoopGurlz. Chris has been involved in the women’s basketball community since 1998 as a coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He can be reached at chris@hoopgurlz.com.
Veronica Algeo coached Fencor to three straight AAU National Championship Game appearances, winning in 2004 and 2005. She served as a varsity assistant coach for nine seasons at Lansdale (Pa.) Catholic High School, which won five conference titles during that period. Veronica also coached junior-high basketball at St. Michael Indian School, on the Navajo Reservation in St. Michaels, Ariz., for two season, taking a previously winless program and helping them to an undefeated league championship in her second year. She played collegiately at Division III Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., where she was among the nation's assist loeaders through her senior season and finished as the school's all-time leader in assists for both career and season.
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