How would Geno fare?

[cabbie191]

OChoops posted this in another thread:

"By the way, I dont think ASU or OSU have any top 50 ranked players on their teams. Both in the top 20."
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That got me thinking. We all believe that GA and CD and the rest of the coaching staff do a fantastic job of getting players to develop, sometime beyond expectations. And we know that after a few years, his early teams achieved more than expected before he had rosters full of All-Americans.

Suppose now in 2014/2015 that he had a roster with no top 50 ranked players. How high might he get the team ranked?

I know - an exercise in pure speculation.

 

[ochoopsfan]

I think Geno would do fine. One thing I noticed while watching these teams the past couple of years is there are no ego's or attitudes. Just hard working young ladies who run their plays and play solid defense. That's any coaches dream.

 

[Bgillon]

They would be better than the current teams. Winning championships though requires star players. That's the next part of Geno and co.'s genius, recruiting! He would attract better players.

 

[pinotbear]

It's an interesting question, and I'm glad cabbie and OChoops brought it up.

I can think of a number of factors to consider. First, there are players outside the top 50, and there are players outside the top 50 who shouldn't be - those undiscovered gems, late bloomers, foreign "under the radar" prospects. So, if you assume that the UConn roster is comprised of talent truly outside the top 50 (but, not waaay outside), I have no doubt that Geno, CD, and the gang would get the players to over-achieve, certainly crack the top 25, and contend for conference titles. In some years they might threaten the top 10, make it into the Sweet 16, stuff like that.

If there were a couple of players on the roster that were outside the "top 50, but, maybe should've been top 50", then, you've got a team certainly threatening the top 10 ranks, round of Sweet 16, and, maybe catching lightning in a bottle and gaining a Final Four. You'd always be one injury away from semi-mediocrity. But, if the talent gap is as large as advertised - teams with rosters deep with All-Americans, top-50 recruits playing a UConn with 50+ ranked players, aside from the occasional "pleasant surprise" - well, most years, conference titles and making the Sweet 16 would be "reach goals".

 

[DobbsRover2]

Geno has always said there are two kinds of coaches -- coaches that recruit great players, and ex-coaches. That's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but recruiting is a major part of a coach's job and the best coaches are usually top recruiters, so it's hard to separate out the "being a top coach" from "having great players."

The best indicator of how Geno might do would be to look at how he did at that early time when he was trying to break into the higher levels of the WCBB and got there with a team in 1990-91. The names of the players are almost semi-legendary in certain Husky fandom circles -- Kerry Bascom, Wendy Davis. Meghan Pattyson, Laura Lishness, Debbie Baer, plus reserves Orly Grossman and Heidi Law -- but if I remember right, maybe one was considered a decently high recruit who would crack a top 50 list. Kerry Bascom had gotten some attention from AAU play and her personal situation made her want to stay close to home in New Hamphire, limiting her choices of schools. Geno and Chris won her to UConn by giving her that old line about having to work hard or they wouldn't promise her anything. Who can resist it when it's put that way?

So Geno and Chris took a decent but not especially prized group centered on Bascom and guided them through to the 1991 FF through a regimen of hard work and practice. Following 1991, UConn had a little more cachet, and a definitely highly prized recruit like Rebecca Lobo who had been watching the Huskies' progress for a while even before 1991 was ready to come on board and help move UConn into the elite. Times have changed hugely in the last quarter century with recruiting and game tactics and player athleticism moving to new levels, but if Geno and Chris did it once, I imagine they could do it again.

 

[VAUConnFan]

We will never know. IMO, it is more difficult to win without truly great players now than it was 20-25 years ago. As long as there capapble scorers on the roster Coach Auriemma and staff would do well.

 

[ThisJustIn]

It's an interesting question. How do folks assess Geno's coaching/recruiting through the '04-'09 years?

 

[JoePgh]

It's an interesting question. How do folks assess Geno's coaching/recruiting through the '04-'09 years?

That's a slightly strange choice of years. From 2004-2007 (the three seasons when UConn did not reach the Final Four), they had a gap in the backcourt because Nicole Wolff did not play effectively on offense after she returned from two years of injuries, and neither Mel Thomas nor Ketia Swanier could really handle the ball and see the court the way a UConn point guard needs to do. Geno was very open about this. Remember that he even had Ashley Valley running the point in some critical games in one year (and she did comparatively well -- one victory over Rutgers had CViv complaining that "we got beat by no-names tonight").

The arrival of Renee Montgomery was the beginning of the revival. That allowed Mel to move to the 2 where she was quite effective. The next year, Maya arrived and the return to the Final Four happened.

So I guess you could say that he coached as well as he could with the backcourt talent that he had recruited, but between Diana's departure and Renee's arrival, he didn't have the talent he needed to run effectively the offense that he would like to use. So I guess you could say that is a recruiting deficiency. There were some unusual contributing factors -- who would have predicted that Nicole would be ineffective for two years, or that the girl from California would withdraw her commitment? But there it was.

Another factor weighing on his coaching in that era was the constant soap opera surrounding Charde Houston. I believe that was the program's first experience with someone whose personal background prior to UConn was so troubled, and clearly it will be their last. I think he would say that is a lesson dearly learned.

Another observation about Geno's evolution as a coach (not really related to the above): I think his experience with the US National Team has made him a better coach at UConn. I believe he recognizes that, and it may have contributed to his willingness to do that for a second 4-year cycle. The biggest difference that I detect is his greater openness to 1-on-1 play when he has the talent to do that. I'm not sure we would be seeing as much of Stewie's hook shot, Morgan's post moves, or Gabby's acrobatics if he did not learn from his Olympic experience to let star players do their 1-on-1 thing to a greater degree than he was previously comfortable with. And that has made UConn a better team, especially since the old passing and ball movement offense has not disappeared, but has been augmented by this additional component (equally true of the USA team). And I'm sure it makes highly talented players (not named Diamond Deshields) more interested in playing in Storrs.

 

[MilfordHusky]

I think he could take this year's Princeton team deep into the NCAA tourney, maybe to Tampa.

 

[DobbsRover2]

JP,well said, though I have my doubts that Geno is more open now to exploiting a player's special talents. Team play and contributions have always been and will continue to be the core element, but from Ketty Bascom to Rebecca Lobo to Kara Wolters to Sveta Abrasimova to Sue Bird to Diana Taurasi and on an on, he has always been quite ready to ride unique talents to a title. We only need to remember the clear-out play for DT in the 2002 NC to know that he's always ready to ride his ace in the hole.