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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 4987615, member: 12088"] I totally agree about the problem of not having 10+ players for practices. Nika and Aaliyah have complained about this, too. It's been a problem off and on for 3 years now. Having 13 (or more) this year ought to make a significant difference in the season because of the practices Geno can run. Opposing teams will get to hear UConn roar again. The thing about the practice culture is that kids have to buy into it, and this is key to Geno's recruiting. He's looking for a certain kind of kid -- not just scorers, but also kids who will play [B]team defense[/B], where there isn't nearly as much glory to be had. Kids who value defense will value practice. And it's not merely that they work hard in practice. Tons of coaches require this. It's that they see the practices as being on a par with games in terms of importance. This takes a special kind of kid. They also have to bond with each other. Their primary competition isn't necessarily other teams (at least not until March), it's the kids they compete against in every practice, their best friends. This means even if they don't win the competition in practice, they are happy to cheer on their best friends on the court. People wonder why kids who don't get much playing time in a given year stay. It's because Geno has built a special culture that makes them patient. Dawn works really hard on this, too, and to great effect. Tara, Terri Moren, Lisa Bluder, these are the coaches who build effective team culture. Maybe there's a few others, like Megan Duffy. I think they learned it from Geno and Tara. By the way, look at this year's recruits and what you see is a master class in recruiting the right kind of kids. It's not just that they're supremely talented. It's also that they're consummate team players. They're kids cut from the same mould as Nika Aaliyah and Paige, the same as Ash and KK. These are the obvious ones, though they're all like this. Morgan really stands out as a team player in this year's group, a defensive player, a ball hawk, someone who gives her all for the team. Allie and Sarah are too, in their ways. But it's really hard to miss seeing it in Morgan. She seems like a mixture of Nika Aubrey and Caroline -- big, quick, relentless, and really clever with the ball. I can hardly wait for November! [/QUOTE]

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