I don't agree or maybe we do but maybe a minor point. Geno was over-the-top in her criticism of Tina the 1st two years. Since day one I recall Tina said she wanted to be an a/a and super etc. And in regards to over-the-top - I can recall he used to bench her because she didn't average a double-double at halftime. Who does he ever hold to that standard? Other times he didn't like her "body language." Bench her because of that? Really? One thing to sit for a short time. Another to "bench" for it. Tina was all-big east tourney in her soph year (and wound up being 3rd team all-American) and what does Geno do? He benches her in place of McLaren and the one-legged Hunter just before the NCAA Tourney. Then she doesn't have a good tourney and he wonders why? We hear about "rhythm" all the time- what kind of "rhythm" was that?
Geno is not infallible. Didn't Bird suggest Geno's half-time tirade in NCAA semis vs ND cost them?
I just believe Tina was fine her 1st few years - but Geno got the media all worked up on Tina. In Tina's frosh year she was Honorable Mention All-American. In her soph year she was 3rd team A/A then progressed further. In her junior year in High School - she got crushed by Courtney Paris -- so it's not like she was supposed to be Maya when she came out or like DT. Matter of fact in her sr year her team won TOC - yet it was Maya who got the super-supreme accolades. There is no shame in Tina being just a tier below DT and Maya.
I loved to hear I think last year Geno talking about Tina - kind of in awe saying "She is soooooo good" while he was coaching the super pro team. Geno helped get her there certainly. But his 1st couple of years he was over-the-top publicly and the media over-exaggerated his points. For example- we know last year BS and MT didn't deserve to get the benching before the USC game. IMO many questioned this- back then I don't they did as much. Geno made stuff up to get them fired up. He made up stuff with Tina too in order to fire her up. That's his job and it worked. Tina is super player now -- but Tina was a really good player her 1st two years - she was just young and Geno needed her to be HUGE from day one. She couldn't be. She wasn't "Maya." Is the number one recruit this year - KLS going to be an all-American this year? IS this UCONN team going to have live-and die with her defense on Sylvia Fowles type player like Tina had to do in which her bets help in the paint was Charde?
As Sue Bird says - Geno has a formula. I think he over exaggerated the expectations publicly to the media and the media did a poor job realizing Geno was just "telling everyone" In Geno speak "That he had the worst posts in America." It was never that bad. If you keep sticking a mic in his face that does he really have bad posts - he'll defend what he says. That's what he did with Tina imo- instead of just letting it go- the media kept riding it and he kept responding in kind.
Don't disagree about Geno riding the best players hard, but I do remember constantly wondering what kind of game Tina would have game to game - sometimes she would have a game or three that were great and then she would follow it up with a game that was so so and occasionally throw in an absolute clunker. And then sometime in around mid-January of her junior year the pattern just stopped - she became a beast and while every game might not have been great, they were all really good, and the so so games and the clunkers disappeared. You knew what was coming (except for that pesky Stanford NC game
) every night - total commitment. And no more playing nice. Those last year and a half games are the ones I remember with her stomping roar after she had done something important either an in your face 'and one' or a huge block.
And Tina was very good her freshman and sophomore years - absolutely agree. But she changed her junior year and became great.
[Geno himself has said he lost the ND semi-final game, by losing it in the half time locker room.]
