Well in my opinion, the handling, or mishandling of Azura Stevens falls solely with Geno. You can't blame her for bolting to the WNBA when she's projected to be a top-ten pick. We can speculate with the "what-if" as to whether UConn would have won another championship this year with Azura--possibility so. But we needn't speculate much on the season before--had Geno played Azura more, we almost assuredly would have won. Azura played little more than half a game (20.9 minutes per game), yet she averaged nearly 15 ppg and 7 rebounds. Let's extrapolate those numbers to full-game minutes, and Azura would have a very extraordinarily, dynamic season.
In the semi against Notre Dame, her plus/minus was phenomenal, (as was pointed out several times by the game announcers who were all but stupefied that Azura was getting so little playing time). Yet Geno choose to stick to his player hierarchy and only give her spot duty. I know he tries to be loyal to his starters and all, but unlike Gabby and Kia, Crystal was only a sophomore, so she had two full years ahead of her--it was imminently obvious that the Huskies were a much better team against ND with Azura on the court, Kia running point and Crystal coming off the bench..
Without a doubt, had Azura played more minutes, UConn has its 12th national championship. I know it's heresy to second-guess an absolute legend, but it was Geno's lack of flexibility, perhaps mixed with an overshot of misplaced loyalty and tradition that caused the loss--and perhaps played a factor in Azura leaving early... So if in hindsight, Azura could have done some things differently, so too could have Geno...
