The prospect of breaking into the Nebraska women’s basketball team’s starting lineup makes about as much sense to senior forward Danielle Page as this year’s World Series.

Page, who went to high school in Monument, Colo., couldn’t even root for the Colorado Rockies because of her allegiance to the Boston Red Sox. Seems she became a fan while living in Virginia as a youngster.

Weird, huh?

Kind of like how she might feel being a Husker starter, even though over her first three years she’s always been there for coach Connie Yori.

Before her sophomore season, Page got herself ready for the opener after being diagnosed with a breathing ailment.

Last year, after having surgery in late June to repair a torn ACL, she was expected to be out until the Big 12 portion of the schedule. Wrong.

Ninety-six times the Huskers have played during Page’s career, and 96 times she’s played.

But not once has she started.

“It hasn’t been a big deal to me, because no one has ever started above me that was worse than me,” said Page, who’s been a regular when games were on the line at the end.

And so maybe that explains why she’s never bothered to ask if her coach might consider putting her in for the opening jump.

“I think she’s too scared of me to (suggest) that,” said Yori, laughing.

Page shouldn’t need to make such a request this season. She’s the Huskers’ only senior, and junior forward Kelsey Griffin is the only returning starter from last year’s NCAA Tournament team that finished 22-10.

But what Yori needs as much as quality minutes from Page is steady leadership. The fact that Page lived with three-year captain Chelsea Aubry last year ought to come in handy.

“I told Danielle, ‘Make sure you talk to Chelsea about how to be a better leader,’ and she has,” Yori said. “It isn’t a natural thing for Danielle, but she’s got good work habits, so her teammates respect her.”

Page can tell them how when she was an eighth-grader she was the last player to make the cut and never got to play.

“In eighth grade, it was (about) being on a team and making friends with the girls,” she said. “That was the main reason I was on the team.”

However, by the time she was a sophomore, she was starting for the Lewis-Palmer High varsity squad and on her way toward earning a college scholarship.

Once at Nebraska, she had to adjust again.

“I pretty much went from in high school, (where) if I didn’t score 20, 25 points a game we weren’t going to win, to coming here, where I didn’t even have to see the court and we could win games,” Page said.

Obviously, that’s no longer the case. Extremely short on experience, Nebraska is probably going to need the 6-foot-2 Page to at least duplicate her junior-year production, when she averaged seven points and 5.5 rebounds per game, and blocked 60 shots, the most ever by a third-year player.

Those numbers helped the Huskers get back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years.

Naturally, Page holds on to the memory of last season, but not because she’s not ready to move on.

“I keep it in my mind, because there were a lot of great lessons that I learned that year — so many seniors who set a real good example for me to follow, just kind of a blueprint to get to where we want to be this year,” she said.

It’d even be OK with Page if her former teammates showed up after practice every now and then.

“It’s weird,” she said of being the lone senior on a 13-player squad that includes 10 freshmen and sophomores. “Sometimes I’ll go to tell stories like, ‘Hey you remember that time when such and such happened?’ And then I’ll look around and remember, ‘Right, no one was there when that happened. That was just me.’”

All righty, then. So how about them Red Sox?

“I think that big break before the World Series actually started hurting the Rockies,” Page said.

Sounds like she could be managerial material once her playing days are finished.

Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.