Danielle Love’s road trips to Spokane are much lonelier this summer.
Love, a senior-to-be at Cascade High School, is a member of the prestigious Spokane Stars AAU girls basketball team. This is her second summer with the Stars, a Nike-sponsored squad that features some of the premier hoops players in Washington and Idaho.
In 2008 Love was one of several girls from Western Washington who played with the Stars. But now Love, a versatile 6-foot-2 standout, is the team’s only player from west of the mountains. On Wednesday, she drove to Spokane, picking up Stars teammate Jordan Loera — an all-state point guard — in Moses Lake on the way.
The Stars are convening in Spokane for a handful of practices before going to a big tournament in Oregon City, Ore., that begins July 6. Coming up for Love and the Stars are many more tourneys, including stops in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.
“It’s fun,” Love said. “I like playing on this team. I like the girls.”
Love and her teammates are hunting for Division-I college scholarships, trying to impress big-time coaches at the various high-profile competitions.
This past season at Cascade, Love displayed her well-rounded game, averaging 13.4 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 2.5 blocks and 1.6 steals. The 2008-09 All-Wesco North second team pick already has a scholarship offer from Montana State University, where she made an unofficial recruiting visit in June. She has also received interest from the University of Oregon, the University of California-Santa Barbara, the University of San Diego and Pepperdine University. Love hopes to attract more offers and decide where to go before her senior season begins.
“If July goes good with my summer ball, I might make a decision,” Love said. “But then again, I haven’t been able to see any of the schools I’m thinking about in California.”
A captain for the Spokane Stars this year, Love has started every game she’s played with the talent-packed select team. Although she mostly plays power forward for the Stars, Love believes she will be a small forward in college. Her varied skill set makes her a true inside-outside threat, said Stars coach Ron Adams.
“She’s a real solid player, a (potential) major D-I player,” Adams said.
Rattling off Love’s strengths, Adams said Love can score from outside, post up inside and handle the ball. She also rebounds very well — Love grabbed 25 rebounds in a game this past season — and is a solid defender, he said.
The upcoming Oregon City tournament is a big one, Love said, because all of the major West coast college coaches will attend. “It’s interesting,” Love said of the select-team scene, “because it’s a lot more serious than high school, because obviously colleges are watching every game.”
It’s also not cheap. Although Nike pays for the Stars’ shoes, uniforms and practice gear — which would cost the team about $5,000, coach Adams said — Love and her family pay for gas, plane trips and meals. Stars players spend about $2,500 apiece per summer, Adams said. That’s significantly less than what girls on other AAU teams pay, he said.
When the prize is a college scholarship potentially worth around $160,000, the select-team costs are well worth it, said Adams.
“My goal is not to win games,” he said, “but to try to get them to schools at the next level.”
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