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After an impressive summer playing club basketball, college scholarship offers have poured in for Pinewood senior Elle Ladine.
She has offers from four Pac-12 schools: Cal, Washington, USC and Colorado. A sampling of her other offers would include most all West Coast Conference schools as well as schools such as Georgia Tech, Georgetown, Iowa State, Rice and George Washington from around the country.
“It is exciting,” Ladine said. “I had a big jump, zero to a hundred, ever since summer playing with Team Taurasi in L.A., and with Fever (the Pinewood AAU team).”
Why the explosion of interest?
“She’s 5-11, long, with a great feel for the game,” Pinewood coach Doc Scheppler said “It’s like she’s a jazz musician. She wants the ball and she checks all the boxes. Extremely coachable, hard worker, great teammate, great in the open floor. She’s a gym rat, so dedicated to the game.”
Ladine is from a basketball family. Her older brothers, Clayton and Cal, were both standouts in high school in San Francisco, Clayton at Burton, Cal at Lowell. Clayton recently signed a professional contract to play in Iceland. Her father, Clint, currently coaches the Pinewood boys team. A former professional player overseas, he was also Clayton’s high school coach at Burton.
Elle played two years at Lowell before transferring to Pinewood..
“There was no problem with Lowell at all,” Ladine said. “I wanted to be surrounded with people who had the same passion I did for the game. And I really wanted to compete for a state championship in the Open. Going to Pinewood has helped me get to the next level.”
As a transfer Ladine was ineligible at the start of Pinewood’s season in the spring. She ended up playing in 10 of the team’s 17 games, coming off the bench as Pinewood went 17-0 and beat Archbishop Mitty for the Central Coast Section championship.
With gyms closed during the pandemic Ladine actually used that time to her benefit, shooting baskets and working on her game on the half-court gym at Scheppler’s house.
“I got so much better over quarantine,” Ladine said..
Pinewood had its starting lineup all graduate, but with Ladine heading the cast of returning players, the team ought to still fare pretty well.
Ladine shot 46.4% from 3-point range (13-for-28) in six games for Team Taurasi at the Nike Nationals in North Augusta, S.C. in late July.
Emily Lee, another backup last season, recently received an offer from Army after hitting eight 3-pointers in a summer league game in Arizona.
