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Kalana Greene watched her second game from behind the Huskies bench Monday. Afterward she met with the media for the first time since she had her season ended by tears to the anterior cruciate and lateral collateral ligaments in her right knee Dec. 17.
Kalana was in great spirits, just as her teammates have been saying for days. She needs crutches to get around. But she has already begun the rehabilitation process in earnest. She is facing six to nine months of rehab. The plan is that she will be running and cutting by May and that she should be 100 percent by September or sooner.
One topic in particular that was discussed was the possibility of her pursuing a fifth year of eligibility. Kalana would not say for sure whether or not she will return for the 2009-10 season.
“That’s a long way from now,’’ she said. “I’m just thinking about getting healthy. That’s the first thing I’m thinking about. I’m not trying to make any decisions now while I’m hurt. I want to get to 100 percent and I want to get through next season and then make the call. I would love to get this year back, but I’ve got to make the call later on down the road. It’s too much to think about right now.’’

Happy New Year to all and thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

Rich

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Brittany Hunter will not play today against Army. Trainer Rosemary Ragle sent word that she re-aggravated her surgically repaired right knee in Saturday’s victory over Hartford and is listed day-to-day.
Brittany left the Hartford game with 17:07 left in the second half and immediately had her knee wrapped in ice on the bench. This is the first game she has missed this season.

Enjoy the game.

Rich

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The subject has been broached in conversation during the past couple of years. It’s just that former UConn national Player of the Year and current Hartford head coach Jennifer Rizzotti doesn’t allow herself to think about it much.
Rizzotti is being tabbed as Geno Auriemma’ successor at UConn in many circles. But as far as she’s concerned she’s more than happy where she is at this point. And so is the University of Hartford, who announced April 5 that Rizzotti, who first signed a contract in September of 1999, agreed to an extension that will keep her with the Hawks through the 2013-14 season.
Her previous contract, which was signed in 2006, was to run through the 2009-10 season and will be folded into the new deal.
“I don’t think about it a lot,’’ Rizzotti said. “It’s certainly talked about and probably more so as the years go by, but in my mind I have as much to focus on here. I really like my job here. I could’ve easily moved on years ago or whenever I wanted to and there’s a lot of reasons that I’ve stayed at Hartford, and a lot of them have to do with professionally it’s great spot for me. I love the support that I get here and personally it’s a great place for me too. Thinking about coaching at the next level is something that I think I want to do because I’m competitive and I’d like at some point to compete for a national championship. But I’m no in a rush to do it. So therefore I don’t give UConn’s job or any other job for that matter a lot of thought because I’m happy here and I feel like what will be will be. And I feel like he’s going to be there for a long time. No matter what he says about hating this and hating that he’s still getting the best players. And as competitive as he is he’s going to stay there until he gets as many national championships as he can. So if I felt like it was something that was going to happen in a year or two maybe I’d think about it more. And lastly, there’s a lot of good coaches out there and a lot of good candidates for any of those big time jobs. So I’m certainly not going to be one who would assume it would be mine. I would never be that arrogant. I love what I’m doing here and I’m glad that I’ve had success and I’m glad that I’ve been considered for some of these bigger jobs that have opened up in the last couple years. But I’ll always make the decision what’s best for me and I’m not going to look too far ahead. I feel like you’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing and what time you’re living in instead of looking too far ahead.’’
Rizzotti said she has never interviewed for another job. She fielded inquiries from Florida, Michigan and Penn State this past off-season, but she didn’t budge.
Rizzotti is in her 10th season at Hartford. She had compiled a record of 154-100 (.606), including a 10-2 mark heading into tonight’s game against the top-ranked Huskies at the building formerly known as the Hartford Civic Center. She has led the Hawks to two America East regular season championships, three conference tournament championships, three NCAA tournament appearances (2002, 2005, 2006) and one appearance in the WNIT (2007).
This season, with what might be her best team, she has the Hawks on the cups of breaking into the Top 25 for the first time. Life is good for Jen. Everything else out there can wait – for now.
“I get a lot of calls, let’s just say,’’ Rizzotti said. “I don’t pursue them to the point where I get offered anything. But I’ve gotten quite a few phone calls, especially this past year with the amount of openings that there were it was only natural that young coaches that have had success were going to get a lot of phone calls. But I haven’t pursued any of them very seriously. I’ve probably taken one or two phone calls over the past four year to other ADs. I usually let them know early where my heart is, and that’s here at Hartford and in Connecticut. Sometimes I feel like everyone thinks the grass is greener and I’m like, `well, I’m building a Top 25 program who has played in the NCAA tournament three times in the last five years and I think we have chance to advance in it.’ So there’s not a lot of other programs out there that can do that in the next couple years and I’m not in rush to leave that.’’

Rich

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One of the most impressive traits that Geno Auriemma regularly seems to find in his players is their unselfishness and their willingness to sacrifice their personal statistics for the betterment of the team. The top high school players in the country continue to come to Storrs to annually contend for a national championship and not to lead the nation in scoring.
But there comes a time when Geno wants a player to be more selfish. It happened at numerous points during Diana Taurasi’s career. It’s happening again now with star freshman Maya Moore. In the past two games, he’s felt that she’s tried to hard to get her teammates involved rather than looking to create more scoring opportunities for herself.
Maya has still taken 13 shots in wins over South Carolina and San Diego State, but she has scored 10 and 12 points, respectively, in 60 total minutes of action.
“Whenever Maya Moore’s trying to get everybody else involved, she’s lousy,’’ Geno said this morning following practice. “And that’s what has happened the last couple of games. She’s getting (the ball) like … `well, I want to give it to … I’m not sure who.’ I told her in front of the whole team, `I liked it better when you shot the ball every time you touched it.’ That makes us better. It makes you better. People guard you and then all of a sudden, bam, you find the guy that’s open. When guys are thinking pass or are pass-happy, they’re not as good a player, especially when you’re a really good player.’’
Geno used an example from practice today to reinforce his point. Maya made six straight 3-pointers when the Huskies were working on their halfcourt offense. But when they went fullcourt, she found herself looking to pass at times rather than finish.
“We’re on a transition break, she pulls up at 12 feet …. ahhh, let me give it to Charde who’s 10 feet away, who then throws it up top to Renee, who then calls offense to get the ball back to Maya 12 feet from the basket so she can score,’’ Geno said. “Why? Because, you know, I don’t want to score 50 tonight. Can’t I just score 10 and pass the ball to everybody? No. I want you to get 50. What’s wrong with that? I know guys that if they were 0-for-6 they would take the next six shots they got. And I’ve got a guy 6-for-6 from the 3-point line …’’
I’m sure the rant was more entertaining for the media on hand at Gampel Pavilion than it was for Maya to absorb on the court. But Maya, also, is not pleased with her performance in the last couple of games. She said it has nothing to do with moving into the starting lineup. She really didn’t have an answer. All she said is that it has to change.
“My last two games I haven’t been I guess as offensively in my flow like I have in the first seven games,’’ she said. “I don’t really know. Those two games were just kind of shaky. I really don’t attribute that to starting or not starting. You’re still playing basketball. So hopefully those two games are in the past and I can get into more of an offensive rhythm these next games.’’
Despite her so-called struggles Maya’s still averaging a team-high 16.0 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 22.6 minutes through the first nine games of her career.

FYI: Assistant coach Jamelle Elliott was on a recruiting trip at a tournament in the Washington, D.C. area this week.

Rich

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Geno Auriemma can’t remember the last time the Huskies played a homecoming game and the player being honored was not already in the starting lineup. As far as he’s concerned tonight’s homecoming for senior Charde Houston at San Diego State was the first time he had to make a decision whether or not to start the honoree.
Geno said he gave Charde several opportunities to earn a spot in the lineup. She didn’t capitalize on again found herself coming off the bench.
Houston made the decision easier this week by having two poor practices at Cox Arena Wednesday and Thursday.
“I never had to make that decision,’’ Geno said. “Was it hard? I talked to Charde as soon as we got back from the Virgin Islands and we talked a lot about what the next month would bring leading up to this game. And from the coaching staff to her, it was explained that `we need to have you do this, this, this and this. And that’ll get you back to where you were and then we can move forward.’ And it hasn’t happened.’’

Rich

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The first step on the road back to active duty is complete for Kalana Greene. She underwent successful surgery this morning to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a torn lateral collateral ligament in her right knee at the UConn Health Center in Farmington.
“The info that I’ve gotten so far is – whatever good news is – I guess whenever you have an operation it’s either a tremendous success or there are complications,’’ coach Geno Auriemma said. “But from what I understand everything went according to plan. It’s sturdy. It’s stable. It’s fixed. And now it’s time to start the rehab process.’’
Kalana now faces six to eight months of rehabilitation and it is expected that she will be back on the court some time in September. She is eligible to receive a medical hardship waiver from the NCAA because she played in only eight games this season and will have two years of eligibility remaining.
Geno said Kalana tore the ACL when she planted on the drive to the basket and tore the LCL when she was fouled from behind by South Carolina’s Demetress Adams.
“See what happened is when you come down and you land, and when she landed that’s when the ACL went,’’ Auriemma said. “I think she said something about she felt the pop when she landed. So that took care of the ACL. Now the kid flying over hits her and that takes care of the other one. It’s the 1-2 punch. Had she not gotten hit you’re maybe looking at just the ACL.’’
Kalana is the first player UConn has lost to a season-ending injury since Nicole Wolff tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in practice Dec. 1, 2003. She played in just three games that season.

Travel update: Because I know you couldn’t wait to see how my animal death-marred trip ended up here’s how it went down. I managed to get one of the six remaining seats on the 2:25 p.m. flight to San Diego via Phoenix yesterday – a middle seat in the first to the last row. But hey, at least I was on the flight, right? I had a one-hour layover in Phoenix and landed in San Diego at 6:05 PST. The entire trip took 16 hours, 35 minutes from the time I left my house at 4:30 a.m. Thursday morning. Needless to say, I was not in any state to be a social butterfly last night. Instead, I grabbed something to eat and complained to my buddy John Altavilla from the Hartford Courant.

UConn-bound recruit Elena Delle Donne, who is currently sidelined with mononucleosis, will be re-evaluated once Ursuline Academy returns from the Nike Tournament of Champions in Chandler, Ariz. She did make the trip to be with her team. So did UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey, who is checking out the high-level talent at the event.

Maya Moore’s Collins Hill High team was prominently featured in a large three-column ad for the T-Mobil Invitational in Seattle Dec. 28-29 (Versus) on the back page of the sports section in today’s USA Today. Maya went off for a career-high 48 at the event last year in leading Collins Hill to the title. She scored 38 in the first half that day and also finished with 13 rebounds and eight steals.

Rich

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Remember when I spoke about travel snafus earlier this week. Well, here’s another one you don’t hear every day. I missed my connection in Charlotte this morning after we were 68 minutes late getting off the ground at Bradley. Why, you ask? How about because there was a dead animal on the runway. I couldn’t believe it myself. Never have I heard of a plane being delayed because of an animal fatality. This is an incident I won’t soon forget. So instead of getting on a 9:40 a.m. direct flight to San Diego, which would have gotten me to the West Coast just after noon, I am scheduled to standby for the 2:25 p.m. flight through Phoenix (6:21 arrival time in San Diego). My next option is taking the 6:15 p.m. direct flight (8:29 arrival). Either way, I’m spending the day in the airport in Charlotte. Hey, at least they have free wireless Internet.

By the way, Renee Montgomery, Tina Charles and Charde Houston are among the 50 players that have been named to the Naismith Trophy Preseason Watch List. I wonder if the people responsible for compiling the list have ever heard of Maya Moore? The list will be pared to 30 in January. Maybe they will by then.

Rich

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Inclement weather put a stop to a pair of recruiting trips to Missouri and Texas last week by associate head coach Chris Dailey and head coach Geno Auriemma. At this point, it is uncertain whether Geno will be able to make it out to see Kelsey Bone, the top player in the Class of 2009, in the Houston area this season with UConn’s schedule picking up dramatically after a short break around Christmas.
Traveling is not as luxurious as it looks on the surface. Ask anybody who logs hundreds or even thousands of miles flying for business and I’m sure they’ll concur. The time away from your family can’t be made up. Weather is as unpredictable as it comes. And then once you get to your destination there often is nothing easy about reaching your final resting spot.
Geno recounted a home visit to see Kalana Greene in St. Stephen’s, S.C. a few years back. This time it was the GPS in his rental car that amped up his agita.
“When I went down to see Kalana, it took me back to when I was down at Virginia because we used to recruit in North Carolina a lot,’’ he said. “You’re talking 25 years ago. You can imagine what some of those places must have been like 25 years ago. It’s the first place that GPS couldn’t find it. That’s how remote Kalana’s place was. There was nothing. GPS, I punched it in, and it goes, `You are here.’ You know the little target you have in there that says, `You have arrived at your destination.’ I looked around and it was like `Deliverance.’ There was nothing but woods, a dirt road and not one building in sight. And it says, `You have arrived.’ I said, `Arrived where?’ I had to call her like three times to find the damned place. It was incredible. I said, `This is pretty remote. Even GPS can’t find it.’’’

By the way, one thing that really starts my day off on a sour note is when my newspaper does not get delivered. My cinnamon roll oatmeal and O.J. didn’t quite taste the same this morning.

Rich