UALR, Arkansas face interesting possibilities

Still compelling. Still intriguing.

The University of Arkansas Razorbacks and UALR Trojans women’s basketball teams made the NCAA Tournament f ield, the state’s only representatives in either the men’s or women’s divisions, and in its infinite wisdom the NCAA didn’t send them both to the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.

Since UALR is a No. 14 seed and Arkansas is a No. 6 seed, they would have faced a potential matchup in the second round.

The NCAA selection committee chose to send the Razorbacks to College Station, Texas, which will become a regular stop next season when Texas A&M joins the SEC, and if Arkansas wins Saturday it will most likely play the Aggies.

Arkansas Coach Tom Collen was an assistant to Aggies Coach Gary Blair at Arkansas.

If they weren’t going to be playing on a regular basis, that would have been more compelling, more intriguing.

On the other hand, UALR, host of the Sunday-tuesday event, got a healthy dose of intrigue.

It drew No. 3 Delaware, which has the leading scorer in the nation in Elena Delle Donne, who has been one of the more interesting and inspiring stories in college basketball, men or women.

The 6-5 junior plays like Tarzan but looks like Jane.

She was the No. 1 recruit in the nation coming out of high school and chose to play for Uconn, the most powerful women’s program in the country over the past decade.

She lasted two days, then packed up and went home to Delaware.

She is now No. 11 in the program and No. 1 in everyone’s heart in her home state.

Delle Donne said at first she didn’t know why she was so unhappy at Uconn. Nothing happened to her that was bad. She just felt uneasy.

In an interview with USA Today, she said it just took that first hug back home with her sister and she knew she needed to be a Blue Hen just 20 minutes from home rather than a Huskie five hours away.

Her older sister Lizzie was born deaf, blind and with cerebral palsy.

Delle Donne has been quoted as saying hugs are everything to them because they can’t speak, e-mail or Skype. Physical touch is the only way to communicate.

Delle Donne has won every imaginable basketball honor since high school, but she is also an academic All-american carrying a 3.6 grade-point average in early childhood development. She wants to work in special education when she is finished with basketball.

That won’t happen for many years for the young lady who averaged more than 27 points a game this season and led the Blue Hens to a 30-1 record. Their only loss was to No. 5 Maryland, 85-76 on Dec. 29.

Every NCAA Tournament site would have loved to have drawn Delle Donne and the Blue Hens, but UALR somehow was the winner of the Delaware lottery.

Although now Joe Foley — who has his own compelling and intriguing story considering he’s led UALR to three consecutive NCAA tournaments — has to find a way to do something no other school has done. He has to find a way to slow Delle Donne. You don’t stop her.

The Stephens Center also will host the game between No. 6 Nebraska and No. 11 Kansas, who were sisters in the Big 12 Conference until Nebraska bolted to the Big Ten.

To add to that, UALR Athletic Director Chris Peterson was an assistant AD at Nebraska under legendary AD and football coach Bob Devaney. And, in another interesting side note, Nebraska gets sent to Arkansas, the home of Doc Sadler, who was just fired as the school’s men’s basketball coach.

The Stephens Center may not have gotten a possible UALR-UA matchup, but it still has a very compelling and intriguing field.