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Message: [QUOTE="JoePgh, post: 3450724, member: 1131"] I took a trip down memory lane last night (not my personal memories, since I wasn't following UConn WBB in 2000), and decided to watch the first game of the 2000-2001 season on the uconnhuskygames site. That was against Georgia, which had the #3 ranked team in the country going into that season. Georgia was highly ranked for good reason -- its backcourt included Kelly and Coco Miller and Tweety Nolan, all of whom had long and distinguished WNBA careers in their later life. UConn's starting lineup consisted on Sue and Shea in the backcourt, Sveta and Swin as the forwards, and Kelly Schumacher as the center. UConn's bench had a bunch of no-names like Tamika Williams, Asjha Jones, and some freshman from Chino, CA playing her first game in a UConn uniform. She scored 8 points in 15 minutes (with 1 assist and 5 turnovers), but I forget her name. Kennitra Johnson was on the bench and in uniform, but she wasn't going to play even though she had been the "sixth man" in the prior year -- apparently some disciplinary/academic issues, or so the announcers implied. Georgia got off to a 6-0 lead to start the game. The game remained in single digits for about the first 12 minutes, but eventually UConn pulled away and was leading by almost 30 points by the end of the first half. At that point, all of the aforementioned bench players except KJ had played significant minutes, and Morgan Valley, Maria Conlon, and Christine Rigby ("The Big Rig") had even gotten into the game. That is all I watched (the first half), but UConn eventually won the game by 99-70. The point of telling this story, however, is that Geno had a steady shuttle service going between the floor and the bench beginning in the first minutes of the game. The top three bench players were moving in and out of the lineup and sharing minutes with the starters well before the score got lopsided. By the end, Sue and Sveta were the only players who had more than 30 minutes of court time. So, everyone, Geno clearly has no dogmatic preference for a short bench, or for the starters to get the lion's share of minutes. When and if he has players on the bench who can play at or near the level of the starters, he will play them. This game illustrates that, but so does his decision-making as an Olympic coach, where he did the same thing. If next year's freshmen, or some of them, live up to their press releases and (equally important) "get" the UConn offensive and defensive concepts, they will have no problem getting minutes next year, based on this historical data. Geno has even said recently that he does not expect to play with a short bench next year. On the other hand, if the freshman are physically talented but either out of shape or mentally behind the curve, they may also get plenty of pine time. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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