Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 22, 1993 TAG: 9302220080
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Long
EVANS MAKES MOST OF HER FINAL SEASON
VIRGINIA NEEDED someone on the women's basketball team to take charge, so senior Dena Evans stepped up her scoring and the rest of her game.\ There may have been times during her first three years at Virginia that Dena Evans attempted 24 shots.In a month, probably.
Evans was the "other" guard on UVa basketball teams that went to the NCAA Women's Final Four each of the past three years, the one who was overlooked this past fall in stories about the departures of All-Americans Dawn Staley and Tammi Reiss.
It might surprise some people to learn that Evans started all 34 games for the Cavaliers last season as part of a three-guard alignment.
Nobody ever thought of Evans as a scorer, not even coach Debbie Ryan, or so it seemed to Evans after a 72-65 loss at North Carolina in early February.
"She [Ryan] was talking to us after the game," Evans said, "and she said, `Who can we count on at the end of the game? Who's our go-to player?' And [she] kind of implied that last year we had Dawn, but we don't have anybody this year.
"That kind of went on for a couple of days and I took it personally. I just made a commitment to myself to take my game to the next level. She really challenged me - I think it was unintentional - but I'm glad she did."
When the Tar Heels visited University Hall one week later, Evans didn't wait until the end of the game. She had 17 points in the first half and finished with 24 points in what UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell called "The Dena Evans Show."
Evans, who did not take more than eight shots in a game last year until the NCAA semifinals, was 3-of-11 on 3-point attempts and 10-of-24 overall in the Cavaliers' 73-67 victory.
"I was shocked," said Evans, from Deer Park, Texas. "I had never seen numbers like that beside my name. When I called home, I asked my dad to guess how many shots I'd taken and he said 15."
Evans' father, Dean, was a former player at Houston and coach at San Jacinto (Texas) College, and Dena was not unlike other coaches' daughters, an extension of the coach on the floor.
"For three years, I've been a playmaker," said Dena, named for the wife of former Houston coach Guy Lewis. "I always thought, `Pass first.' It was a hard habit to break."
Evans averaged more than 100 assists per year for her first three years, never scoring in double figures. She came closest as a freshman, when she averaged 9.3 points and scored 22 points against Virginia Tech for what was, until recently, her career high.
Evans knew there was a void to be filled in the absence of Staley and Reiss, who finished their careers as the Nos. 1 and 2 scorers in school history. But she failed to reach double figures in UVa's first five games and shot 33.7 percent (30-of-89) in the first nine.
"Dena could always shoot the basketball," Ryan said, "but she came in with the idea she had to score, and she was pressing. I finally told her, `Dena, I don't need you to score. Don't think you have to average 15 points per game.' "
The next game, Evans was 11-of-19 and matched a career high with 24 points against Florida State. She had scored in double figures in 14 of 15 games, including three double-doubles (points and assists).
"It's a mindset, an attitude that you can score," Evans said. "In the beginning of the year, I was shooting a lot, but I wasn't really believing I was going to make shots. But once you get that mindset you can score, there's nothing that can stop you.
"The mindset comes first; then the shots start going in. I don't get my confidence from shots going in. If I miss 20 in a row, I've got the attitude now that I'll make the next one."
Evans has helped UVa (19-5 overall, 11-3 ACC) move to the top of the conference standings. The Cavaliers, coming off three consecutive trips to the Final Four, were picked to finish second in the ACC behind Maryland.
"I think Dena has played this whole year with a certain sense of urgency," Ryan said. "I'm not sure if it's because it's her senior year. But this is her team and she's accepted a huge amount of responsibility."
You might think Evans is consumed by basketball until you consider her grade-point average: 3.89 on a 4.0 scale. An economics major, she has received only two grades lower than "A" in college, a pair of B-pluses her freshman year.
Although she has yet to be selected an academic All-American, as Reiss and UVa's Heather Burge were last year, Evans was a finalist this past fall for a Rhodes Scholarship and missed an early game to be interviewed for that award.
"When I first started the process, not in my wildest dreams did I think I would be a Rhodes Scholar," said Evans, who said she was persuaded to apply by good friend Brad Braxton, a 1991 UVa graduate and Rhodes Scholar from Salem. "He practically had to twist my arm, but I'm so glad I did it."
Evans has been interviewed by Goldman-Sachs, an investment firm on Wall Street, and she has a job interview scheduled with MicroSoft computers in Seattle. She also hasn't ruled out the possibility of entering coaching as a graduate assistant.
"Basketball is what I love; it's what I've done all my life and it's almost over," Evans said. "I think about it every day: `This is my last time to go to Duke, this is my last time to Maryland.' It's not an urgency so much as wanting to get the most out of it, savoring every practice, every game, every pregame meal.
"There's a chance I might go overseas - if I could play in the United States, I would definitely try to do that - but it will never be as good as it is right now. It won't be competitive, it won't be fun, it won't be college. This is as good as it gets for the women's game."