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Message: [QUOTE="UcMiami, post: 1992079, member: 199"] Yes - I think he is much better than he was, and he is also recruiting better than he was, and the recruits generally are more ready for what is about to land on them when they arrive. 1. He is more patient, not softer, just more patient. He has learned that he cannot control everything in a game so he actually 'coaching' less in games, but more effectively. There were times through the mid 2000s when he was overreacting to every mistake that happened on the court. And yes he has expanded his knowledge of the game - it is constantly evolving. 2. The teams of the 90s were patched together with a few 'national recruits' and bits and pieces that national teams weren't that interested in. He landed his first big class TASSK in 1998 and followed that up with Taurasi two years later, but it was still pretty hit or miss, and the 'Uconn' reputation was just really starting to build. It wasn't really until Charles and then Moore that the freight train really picked up momentum. And a big part of that I think has been the endurance of the WNBA and Uconn's alums dominating the draft and the all stars and the USA NT. In 2004 the WNBA was still young and no one was really following the staying power of Uconn players, now it is hard to ignore. 3. The Uconn Way (like the Patriot Way) has become a national story over the past half dozen years - CPTV initially, but SNY specifically on a national level has taken recruits inside practice and the program, and ESPN and now HBO have followed suit. And the expansion of coverage for WNBA stars and USA National team stars with questions always referring back to Uconn and Geno and CD make the program and its demands and rewards a much more open book. Uconn type recruits who might not have know anything about Uconn in 2000, now know more about them than any other program - they may choose to go elsewhere, but they are going to listen to the pitch more than they would have in the past. 3.A. It takes years to build a culture, and years more to have it become self sustaining - Starting with the first recruits in the 80s, and building through the nineties and the early 2000s it became easier and easier on the coaches to sustain because the players were helping - Maya might have the first recruit that truly changed it in to a player dominated process - she taught Tina her senior by a year, and everyone else who came after her during those four years, and they have taught every incoming class since - EDD didn't have to wait to start working with the coaches in practice, one or two summer pick-up games proved to her that she was not at an emotional place where she could answer the call - she was already feeling trapped by other people's expectations and at Uconn there would be no escape. That isn't to say the players from 1990 weren't teaching the ropes to the Lobo's and Bird's that followed, just that it hadn't become so much of what every player ate and breathed. There wasn't the sense of looking at icons of WCBB and not wanting to let them down. There wasn't a Bird showing up at practice during a rehab stint because there hadn't been those players who had sustained national and international pro success prior to her class really. A freshman having to ask Bird or Taurasi or Moore for permission to wear their number... pretty heady stuff and that conversation is just one small iota of the responsibility being laid on the new players. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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