So no one cares to comment on Geno's views on the Tennessee game tomorrow night, or on the historical rivalry?
Regarding the game, he said that TN will be the tallest team that UConn has faced, and that will pose some problems, and he give Coach KJH credit for having them play 5-on-5 rather than relying on isolation plays for their offense. He said that on offense, UConn will be trying to move them around, implying without quite saying that he expects them to have trouble moving correctly and quickly on defense. That sounds to me like a resurrection of the "backdoor 'em to death" strategy that he has used before against the Tennessee teams of old.
Regarding the old rivalry, I thought the most interesting part was when Bob Joyce asked him to compare the TN rivalry to the more recent rivalry with Notre Dame. He said that it wasn't really the same, because the total wins and losses with ND were very much in UConn's flavor, but he acknowledged that in the last 10 years, and (he said) especially during the 4 years that Skylar Diggins was in South Bend, it was a rivalry of comparably talented teams. But, he said, it was still different in that by then there were other strong rivalries around WCBB, whereas in the heyday of the TN rivalry, UConn- Tennessee was the only rivalry in women's basketball that most people knew about. He said that a lot of people watched the UConn vs. Tennessee games even though they couldn't name a single player on either team -- it was just expected to be a really good and evenly matched basketball game.
I'm glad I'm listening to this broadcast.