Ex-model McPhee in a different spotlight

To many teenage girls, it would have been the opportunity of a lifetime — a lucrative deal as a model. Catalog work. Cover shots. International travel. Strolls down the runways in Milan and Paris.

Brittany McPhee was not yet 16. She had been to New York many times for modeling work and had flown there by herself when she was 13. At 16, she was one of three finalists at an international modeling competition in Beijing.

Even then, she was having second thoughts about modeling as a career. She didn’t like the weeks away from home. The bigger issue was that her agency insisted she give up basketball.

No way, McPhee said. She’d rather be Elena Delle Donne than Gisele Bundchen.

Several years after retiring from modeling, she’s about to step into the spotlight again. In the NCAA Tournament, the 6-foot junior has become the