2/7/2020 - The Geno Auriemma Show | The Boneyard

2/7/2020 - The Geno Auriemma Show

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He was positively speechless when it came to Aaliyah Edwards. Sounds as though she might be the catch of the class!!

He's repeatedly downplayed Bueckers, however. Either wants to keep her ego in check, or else he thinks she's mortal.

Really gushed about Edwards, though. That was interesting...
 
Nice stories about all five incoming recruits. But he is right, a five player class is going to be tough. Tough to dedicate enough time to each player, tough to find playing time for each player, and tough just keeping the class together. I don't know that we've ever had a five player class stay together. The last one saw just Bria and Stef make it to senior day.
 
hoopsfan22 said:
Nice stories about all five incoming recruits. But he is right, a five player class is going to be tough. Tough to dedicate enough time to each player, tough to find playing time for each player, and tough just keeping the class together. I don't know that we've ever had a five player class stay together. The last one saw just Bria and Stef make it to senior day.
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FWIW the TASSK class probably would have stayed together if not for the injuries that ended the career of Kiersten Walters.

Frankly I'm not concerned about everyone staying. I HOPE they do so please don't take my comments as "I don't care". But historically, we've NEVER had a kid transfer who was a starter or a key reserve. Excluding personal reasons for transfers (Kennitra Johnson, Delle Donne, Walker), pretty much every kid who left was never going to be a starter and unlikely to be a key reserve off the bench. Michala Johnson, Banks, Ekmark, Edwards, Boykin, Espinosa, and Gordon all left for greener pastures a-la more playing time (with the possible exception of Edwards who had other issues).

My point is, the best players with the best attitudes will play. They will either become starters (Makurat this year), or key reserves off the bench (Griffin this year).

Some non-starters have relished their roles as non-key reserves. Tahirah Williams, Cassie Kerns, Heather Buck, Meghan Gardler, Jacquie Fernandez, Lorin Dixon, Kyla Irwin, Molly Bent all had great experiences at UCONN, and were fine with reduced roles based on their lack of elite hoops talent.

In our history, generally kids who are lower rated do just fine because they accept the fact that they will never be key reserves getting 15-20 MPG even against top competition. So looking at the 5 coming in, we all can see how highly rated they are. McLean is raw. Gabriel is VERY raw. Muhl seems really good but her shooting is suspect. I think the only 2 sure things in the class are Bueckers and Edwards.

It remains to be seen how they ALL develop. For the record, I would not be surprised to see a class of 4 or even 5 for 2021. I imagine Fudd will not verbal until very late, perhaps not till November. I do not expect Geno will stop recruiting other kids with the expectation she's coming. Not sure if I'm in the minority, but i do not care about recruiting "over" someone.

Go hard after Miles, Rivers, Iriafen, Moore, and anyone else in the class he feels would be a good fit and who likes UCONN. PT will get worked out in the future. So IMHO Geno needs to go after every top kid he feels is a good fit.

If we have too many and they aren't happy down the road, deal with it. But there are no guarantees. Injuries happen. Transfers happen. Right now we are an injury away from basically having no bench in big games. Back when we landed EDD, there was no backup plan. No other kids in play. We lost her and it created a huge hole. Could Geno have gotten other kids knowing she had verbaled? I have no idea, but her decision left us with a hole that could not be filled.

When Collier changed her mind, thank God we were already in with Olivia. Even with her, we lost out on a lot of other post players. I don't want UCONN to make that mistake again.

I expect Geno has learned from experiences like that and hope he does not pass over kids because he's waiting on Fudd.
 
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EricLA said:
When Collier changed her mind, thank God we were already in with Olivia. Even with her, we lost out on a lot of other post players. I don't want UCONN to make that mistake again.
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I don't think Collier committing and then going elsewhere had any effect on who else Uconn was recruiting - there just aren't that many bigs that get the staff excited and have any interest in Uconn. People seem to have this idea that there are a lot of good 6'4"+ players in the recruiting pool and yet you look at WCBB and the 4 recruiting classes that are on the court each year and very few teams have 6'4"+ players that you could see getting lots of minutes on a Uconn team and fewer that are playing outside their home state and fewer still that are playing outside their region. And look at any rating service and see how many exist in the top 50 - 7 in 2020 and 6 in 2021 - and realize that most of them get a 5-10 ranking bump just because in HS they almost never face competition that has a chance to bother them. 2021 top ten is 4 guards, 5 wing/forwards 6'3" and under and one forward at 6'5". 2020 has 6 guards 1 wing and 3 6'4"+ players. And only Cardoso is leaving her 'region'.
 
Centerstream said:
But according to a huge number of posts all over the BY, I thought Geno was no longer a good recruiter. Hmm. :rolleyes:
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You don't have to listen to the BY.
According to Geno: We are where we are because of a couple of lousy recruiting classes. Either he didn't get the kids he wanted or the kids he got weren't what he thought he was getting.
Does anyone ever remember Geno not gushing over a recruiting class?
 
Fairfield Fan said:
He was positively speechless when it came to Aaliyah Edwards. Sounds as though she might be the catch of the class!!
He's repeatedly downplayed Bueckers, however. Either wants to keep her ego in check, or else he thinks she's mortal. Really gushed about Edwards, though. That was interesting...
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Of Edwards Geno said something I have NEVER heard him say of any other recruit since Rebecca Lobo.
Geno told Aaliyah's mother the first time he saw her play in Florida that she is the player he must have at Connecticut. He said the same to Kathy when he was recruiting Rebecca.
 
What Geno says about Nika and A. Edwards is pretty cool. I think it’s probably because they haven’t gotten as much media attention and Geno wants ppl to know they gonna be Gooood.
 
CocoHusky said:
Of Edwards Geno said something I have NEVER heard him say of any other recruit since Rebecca Lobo.
Geno told Aaliyah's mother the first time he saw her play in Florida that she is the player he must have at Connecticut. He said the same to Kathy when he was recruiting Rebecca.
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I love those kids with a nasty ass motor.
 
BobbyJ said:
I love those kids with a nasty ass motor.
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l agree, and I would add “attitude.” I had a very interesting old college football coach who made up his own term for what we are talking about and would always say, “I only want players with the stank.” We thought it was weird until we learned that he cared less about raw talent than he did about confidence, determination, hate-to-lose attitude, and non-stop motor. As a coach I also learned that great talent is also nice to have as well
 
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I'm trying to think of who else was "relentless." The kids born in Jefferson City, MO, come to mind--Maya and Pheesa. Can someone check Aaliyah's birth certificate? :)
 
Ecstatic as I am that we got Paige, I'm more excited for Edwards. Sounded as if Geno was kind of at a loss for words when discussing her but at the same time very excited and anxious. Also noticed the running up and down the floor comment about Piath was a bit homogeneous to his recruiting of Stefanie Dolson. Although he acknowledges that Piath is raw, it came across to me that he looks forward to developing Piath to her potential.
 
Geno indicated the the current set of UCONN Fans at home games don't bring the aggressive intensity that other school's home team fan base brings it against opposing teams. Sounds like Geno is somewhat disappointed with the fans
 
GRIFFBIFF20 said:
Geno indicated the the current set of UCONN Fans at home games don't bring the aggressive intensity that other school's home team fan base brings it against opposing teams. Sounds like Geno is somewhat disappointed with the fans
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I don't think that Geno is disappointed with the fans. He understands perfectly well why the crowd does not respond with as much fervor as it used to when success was new and unexpected. At the same time, he laments the absence of what once was. I can lament the fact that I can no longer get as excited about Christmas as I did when I was a child, without being disappointed with myself.
 
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hoopsfan22 said:
But he is right, a five player class is going to be tough. Tough to dedicate enough time to each player, tough to find playing time for each player, and tough just keeping the class together. I don't know that we've ever had a five player class stay together. The last one saw just Bria and Stef make it to senior day.
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I don't think 6 returning players is a lot for next year. Yikes! I am disagreeing with the Master. God forbid injuries! If I learned anything from my career in information technology, it was always, ALWAYS have multiple backup plans for every system. Murphy's Law is real. Having multiple capable players as backups is a really good thing. UCONN will have four returning starters (Olivia, Meg, CW, and Anna) with Evina being the fifth starter with Aubrey off the bench for significant minutes.
So are there really 5 strong recruits? I see Paige, Nika, and Aaliyah as significant contributors no later than mid-January, 2021. To me Mir ressembles Aubrey. I see her getting minutes but not as a significant contributor as a frosh. Mir will contribute meaningfully as a sophomore. I would love to see Mir and Abrey as hyper-athletic shutdown defenders in a year or so. Piath is a project. As such I don't see a return on investment until her Junior year. Hopefully, Geno's investment will be paid back in numerous Dolson Dollars! (I still miss Big Momma; arms out and palms up giving the ref her "Wah? I fouled her? No way! All the while the opponent's post is on the floor wondering if she just ran headlong into a wall.
So ideally I see come January, 2021 Geno having 8-9 to significant contributors. I love my new really rosy red colored glasses. I think I'll keep them.
 
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SVCBeercats said:
I don't think 6 returning players is a lot for next year. Yikes! I am disagreeing with the Master. God forbid injuries! If I learned anything from my career in information technology, it was always, ALWAYS have multiple backup plans for every system. Murphy's Law is real. Having multiple capable players as backups is a really good thing. UCONN will have four returning starters (Olivia, Meg, CW, and Anna) with Evina being the fifth starter with Aubrey off the bench for significant minutes.
So are there really 5 strong recruits? I see Paige, Nika, and Aaliyah as significant contributors no later than mid-January, 2021. To me Mir ressembles Aubrey. I see her getting minutes but not as a significant contributor as a frosh. Mir will contribute meaningfully as a sophomore. I would love to see Mir and Abrey as hyper-athletic shutdown defenders in a year or so. Piath is a project. As such I don't a return on investment until her Junior year. Hopefully, Geno's investment will be paid back in numerous Dolson Dollars! (I still miss Big Momma; arms out and palms up giving the ref her "Wah? I fouled her? No way! All the while the opponent's post is on the floor wondering if she just ran headlong into a wall.
So ideally I see come January, 2021 Geno having 8-9 to significant contributors. I love my new really rosy red colored glasses. I think I'll keep them.
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I think that when the "system" consists of teenage human beings with feelings, aspirations, and expectations, having multiple back up plans is more complicated than you suggest.
 
ESPN today is writing about "reviving" the program. Why? Because we didn't get past the semis for 3 straight years. BUT, of course, we did get that far: one game shy of the NC game (which we've never lost). ESPN also cites the "bad" loses to Baylor and Oregon, and they were bad. But these weren't exactly slouches; either the Bears or the Ducks will probably win it all.
So what's the problem? The great Pogo cartoon strip often said: "The problem is us." We expect to 1. Win, 2. Win Big, 3. Never lose.
Is it fair to say that our 2 #1s of recent vintage, Meg and Christyn, aren't as "great" as we hoped? Don't know the answer, but having them hasn't gotten the results in the "big" games. Crystal is the best player on the team (she was a #3 and the top guard when she came in). There's nothing more that she can be doing. Liv is, to me, a disappointment. Consider her performances in the Baylor and Oregon games. And we don't have a quality 5th starter or a game-changing bench player.
So: Geno's correct. W/out the best players you don't win NCs.
(Think where we'd be with Lauren Cox or Aliyah Boston on our team.)
 
Shenandoah said:
He just may have enough talent next year to change lines like a hockey coach!
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I posted about the idea of a Blue team and a White team. I also believe that Dean Smith had the personnel back in the day and did this.
 
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