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Message: [QUOTE="JoePgh, post: 2040153, member: 1131"] Geno himself has said in interviews that he considers UConn fortunate that the program has achieved a level of prestige where he can afford not to recruit even great athletes who are not "ready for the real world", in Dawn's words. UConn can still get very good (and some great) athletes who will accept coaching and don't need to be taught how to pay attention to an alarm clock for those 6 AM workouts before classes, and who do not need an excessive amount of academic support. Programs like South Carolina, though they are almost as good on the court as UConn and in some cases have better athletes, do need to compromise and take players with off-court issues in order to have a team that can compete for an NC. Maybe (or maybe not), Dawn would confine her recruiting to "real world ready" players if she could field a competitive team that way, but unlike UConn / Stanford / ND / Duke, she might not be able to do that. I didn't follow UConn's program closely in its formative years in the early 90s, but my impression is that even then, Geno only recruited players who were "real world ready" in this sense. It IS a tribute to his coaching that he was able to win an NC in 1995 with only those kinds of kids, but it's doubtful that the 1995 team would get past the Sweet 16 today. [/QUOTE]