I believe the foreign recruitment was born out of necessity with Anna, after a few recruiting misses, but now it has opened up a potentially promising new frontier. While Uconn has major domestic competitors and famous coaches, on the foreign front to young girls they are the gold standard.
Uconn was late on Nika. She already had narrowed her list to 4. Apparently Uconn's interest was derived by the fact there were good teams on that list, and it sounds like they concluded if these teams are recruiting her maybe we should take a look. When they did, she added Uconn to the list and very soon committed, which makes it appear like when Uconn got involved it was game over.
The reaction to a Uconn offer from overseas seems to be "OMG I can't believe it". In some ways I think we could be more dominant recruiting there than here, because there it seems like the perception is there is Uconn and everyone else is a major rung down.
Going forward I hope we make the search for foreign players a high priority, not game-plan B or C. More proactive, because we apparently have a real edge there. That edge will be even greater if foreign players see Anna and Nika succeeding in the program and making the cultural adjustments etc.
