LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Dana Evans was a star before she ever signed with Louisville. She was an Indiana Miss Basketball finalist, and by virtue of a standout career at Gary West High School, she was a role model who had lines to get her autograph after games before she ever graduated.
Most of the time, Indiana Miss Basketball contenders come from the heartland. Evans came from an inner-city school. She wound up finishing runner-up in the balloting, then got to U of L and had to start over.
She played behind point guard Arica Carter, though that’s probably not the best way to put it. She played alongside Carter by coming off the bench for most of her first two seasons, starting just five games in her freshman and sophomore years combined. She led all ACC freshmen in assists her first season then was the league’s Sixth Player of the Year a year ago.
“She could have started, here or anywhere,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “But that wasn’t the most important thing to her.”
She played in the shadows of more experienced and high-profile players for two years, but now, she is at center stage for the No. 2-ranked Cardinals.
Evans is coming off a three-game swing at the Paradise Jam in which she averaged a tournament-best 21.3 points, while shooting 47% from the floor, 11-21 (.524) from 3-point range and 17-18 (.944) from the free throw line. She leads the ACC with 19.6 points per game and 24 made 3-pointers. She is shooting 52% from beyond the arc, which ranks second the league.
ESPNw named her its national player of the week.
Among the wins in the Bahamas was an upset of No. 1-ranked Oregon in which Evans finished with 17 points, including seven points in the final 1:42, to help preserve the win. She went 0-6 from the field, five of them three-pointers, in the second half, before making a long, step-back three after Oregon had cut its deficit to six, then drove in for shots and got fouled, making 4 of 4 free-throws in the final minute.
But she’ll be the first to tell you she wouldn’t have completed that kind of finish a couple of years ago.
“I think I missed 10 straight shots before I made that one, so I was just thinking, ‘There’s no way I’m going to miss another one,’” she said. “...If I had played the first half I had against Oregon that I did last week, I think I would’ve have been shut down. But now I think I’m more calm and more able to bounce back and move forward to the next play. And that’s a big thing for me.”
Evans credited U of L’s director of mental performance, Vanessa Shannon, for giving her ways to attack her new leadership responsibilities and more. Evans shot 22% from three-point range her freshman year. Last year, she was up to 38%. This year, she’s at 52%. The difference, she said, was equal parts practice and confidence.
“It’s really a mental thing. I’ve been talking to Vanessa, and she helps me a lot. She’s been a huge difference for me,” Evans said. “...Freshman year to today, she’s made all the difference.”
Walz said he’s challenged Evans in several areas this year, but you can tell he’s proud of her progress.
“She’s put the time in,” Walz said. “She was in that gym all summer, working on her three. I think she’s really starting to grasp the idea of being a point guard. I challenged her, and I think I offended her a few games ago in a press conference. She was sitting right next to me, and I said that she’s an elite scorer, but she’s not a true point guard. Just because you’re 5-6, doesn’t mean you’re a point guard. She had played 40 minutes in that game and had one assist. The next game, I think it was Central Michigan, she came out and had six or eight assists and text me after the game and said, ‘That’s not bad for a wing, is it?’
“So she gets it. And I thought she did a great job during the three games of the tournament getting people involved and being a threat to score but also finding her teammates in position to score.”
Evans is one of four key returnees who have been through the battles, have had big wins and been to Final Fours. That group is doing its best to share its experiences handling success, and adversity, with the team’s newcomers.
“It means nothing if we go backward and not continue to get better as a team,” Evans said. “So I just try to keep people humble and let them know we have a lot of games to play and a lot of room for improvement.”
It's not difficult to stay humble, though, with Walz around.
“He does a good job keeping everybody grounded,” Evans said. “We know we have a long way to go.”
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