Sorry, I call bulls--- on Flynn. There is no retribution. EDD made Team USA when healthy. Langhorne is a decent WNBA player with limitations. She's not Team USA caliber. The Parker situation was discussed at great length. She never decommitted from UConn, and she played in London in 2012.
All correct.
Here's the very garbled Flynn statement raising the specter of USA basketball retribution for leaving UConn.
it’s well known the pressure to leave comes with the inference that any future with USA Basketball could be doubt as witnessed by long-time WNBA and Euro stars Candace Parker (Tennessee-LA Sparks) and Crystal Langhorne (Maryland-Seattle Storm) stories.
First of all, one assumes he means pressure
not to leave comes with that inference, but he says the opposite. OK, a little sloppy.
But then, in addition to the poor example of EDD (as others have pointed out), he refers to Parker and Langhorne, neither of whom ever committed much less left.
UConn never even recruited Parker, because her father told Geno he'd be wasting his time. There are lots of outstanding players not recruited by the best programs because it's clear they're going elsewhere.
If Geno were inclined to strike back at everyone in this category, he's spend all of his time plotting and none of it winning championships. But the orange-tinted conspiracy theory lives on, it seems.
Why Flynn even brings up this sort of flailing at the air at this point is a mystery.
The more interesting story line here, to me at least, is how a program like UConn, that recruits nationally and little from its own state, is vulnerable to mind changes because of situations that make recruits want to stay closer to home.
A hurricane here; the death of an uncle there (second Samuelson sister); an air travel safety scare (9/11, Nikki Blue); family needs (EDD); even rumored romantic attachments (so as not to be gossipy, will leave the several examples that come to mind unspoken).
But great basketball does prevail plenty enough of the time to allow UConn to carry on and thrive with its general appeal, not so?
