UConn women's basketball

It took a few months longer than Jessica McCormack and the UConn medical staff would have liked, but McCormack finally participated in practice for the first time Tuesday. The major hang-up has been a persistent problem with her uncooperative right Achilles tendon.
McCormack said she first suffered the injury last season at Washington. She played through the pain last summer in Beijing as a member of the New Zealand Olympic team. And when she arrived at UConn in September she rehabbed it with ice, heat, electric stimulation, massage and whatever else the team’s top-notch training staff prescribed. She said she did everything she could in an effort to eliminate the pain, even spending the last month and half wearing a boot.
Still, nothing worked. Finally, together, it was decided to allow McCormack to begin practicing.
“It’s still pretty much the same, but we’ve just kind of reached a joint decision that it’s not improving a whole lot and it’s kind of a thing that I think is going to improve on its own time,’’ McCormack said. “This is the year for me to get better and to improve and I’ve just got to learn to deal with it. And I will. I’ve done it before.’’
This is an ailment that isn’t expected to heal any time soon as McCormack is likely to be dealing with pain for a while. But since NCAA rules do not permit her to play this season after transferring from Washington, her slow-going is not proving costly to her or the team right now.
She did some halfcourt work Tuesday, looking like she has the potential to help the Huskies next season.
“I’m so happy,’’ McCormack said. “I’m rusty. I feel like a 10-year old again. But it’ll get there eventually. It’s kind of a step at a time I think.’’
“This is her first day that she actually did any drills,’’ Auriemma said. “It’s been mostly a little bit here, a little bit there of conditioning and rehab. And they’ve told her that she can now do some halfcourt drills, but there isn’t any contact yet. But it’s obviously a positive sign, and slowly but surely we can get her out there and get her playing.’’

Freshman Heather Buck has not yet reached the point where she will be able to begin practicing. She is still a week or two away from that as she continues to recover from mononucleosis. She’ll have to settle for light activity at this point.
“She’s running now,’’ Auriemma said. “She still hasn’t been able to get in the weight room, and I think that’ll happen in the next couple of days. Maybe Friday. So, obviously, her conditioning’s not where it needs to be and it’s going to take her a while to catch up. How long? I don’t know. And then we have exams and then we have the Christmas break, so it’s almost three months that will have gone by. So I really don’t have a timetable for how long it will take for her to catch up.’’

Rich

Sitting in the postgame media room late Sunday night you would have thought Renee Montgomery, the Big East Player of the Week, was asked to share her deepest, darkest secrets when she was asked to comment on her brilliant, all-world performance in leading the Huskies to a 106-78 rout of No. 4 Oklahoma. Seated between Maya Moore and Tina Charles, with coach Geno Auriemma flanked to the right of Moore, Montgomery uttered under her breath that it was awkward. It pained her that she was being asked to talk about a performance that was one of the best in team history, one that came on national television with national media on hand.
She completely dodged the question and instead went with a patented team-oriented response.
“I really think Caroline Doty opened it up for us because she hit like four 3s right up top,’’ Renee said. “So they were trying to help off of people. But when you’ve got other people hitting shots you can’t really help off of anyone.’’
Doty, the hotshot freshman, was nasty, nailing all six of the 3-pointers she attempted in setting a team single-game record for 3-point accuracy. But it wasn’t Renee-type numbers. It wasn’t 30 points (12-of-22 FG), six rebounds and 13 assists in 38 minutes. She established a career-high in scoring and assists, tying a team single-game record in assists. It had been almost 17 years since someone had that many assists in a game for the Huskies (Laura Lishness vs. Seton Hall Jan. 12, 1991).
So while Renee wouldn’t give herself a quick pat on the back, her coach certainly took the time and he had plenty to say. He has seen his share of monster performances over the course of his 24 seasons in Storrs. Players named Bascom, Lobo, Wolters, Rizzotti, Sales, Abrosimova, Bird and Taurasi – just to name a few – all had their share during their careers. But Geno found himself thinking long and hard last night if there was one as good as Renee was against Oklahoma. And he couldn’t remember one.
“Kerry Bascom used to put up numbers like that,’’ Geno said. “She was a 6-1 center who shot 45 percent from the 3-point line. She would pile up a lot of points. Diana when she had those 32-point, 36-point games in the NCAA tournament where she just dominated the game. I would have to think really, really hard and go back and check to ever really come up with anything that is better than what I saw (Sunday). She was just … phew. Everybody has Maya Moore on their All-America team. Everybody in the country knows Maya Moore is the best player in the country. I think Renee is trying to make sure she is not the best player on our team.’’
Renee was in charge right from the start. She made a pull-up 3-pointer in transition just two minutes, 38 seconds into the game. She had five assists before the teams had reached the midpoint of the half and she had 10 points with 7:45 left be halftime as UConn led 36-22.
In the second half, she ripped the Sooners apart by scoring 13 of her 20 points in the half during a 22-6 run that transformed the game from interesting to a rout. The Huskies led 61-53 when Renee hit a long 3 in front of the Huskies bench with 14:55 left. And she would score 10 of the team’s final 14 points in the run. In all, she scored those 13 points in a span of 5:11.
“I looked at her line at halftime and I told T.K., my assistant coach, that’s a great line at the end of the game,’’ Sooners coach Sherri Coale said. “At halftime she had nine assists and six rebounds and (10) points. A point guard? Six rebounds? And it just continued. And when she’s in the zone … I think she may be the best point guard in America just because she gets it. She can score going to the rim. She can shoot a pull-up. She can shoot a 3. She can distribute. But she gets the management of the game. I think maybe she took two questionable shots. Otherwise, she just made beautiful decisions and what she did was go right at (Danielle Robinson) when she got in foul trouble and that was a problem. And that’s her senior experience, her headiness. You could tell.’’
What everybody could tell is that Renee is playing the best basketball of her career right now in her final season. She is feisty. She is driven. She is talented. And she is the leader of the most talented team in the country.
The Huskies still have as many as 34 games left. But after five games, there is no doubt that led by a point guard named Montgomery this team has the chance by season’s end to be remembered as one of the best in the team’s illustrious history.
“Two years ago, Renee Montgomery couldn’t have played the game she played (Sunday), because every time they scored she would have wanted to do something real fast to try to make up for the fact that they scored and would do something that was uncharacteristic of her,’’ Geno said. “(Sunday), I told her during one timeout, `This is the evolution now. This is where you now start to realize we’re up 18 or 19, and now we cross the court, we spread the floor out and we’re going to get the shot we want when we want to take it, and they’re not going to have anything to say about it.’ And she just had this smile on her face. And then almost like two possessions later she came down, and I could tell she wanted to shoot it right now. I said something and she pulled it out. I think she shot it anyway, but at least we killed a couple more seconds. But she just isn’t… to be really honest with you, she’s been like this since the first day of practice. She had about a week where she kind of lost it a little bit in practice. But she has been like this since Oct. 18.’’

The performances by Renee, Maya and Caroline drew their share of attention. But the work put in by Tina Charles and Kaili McLaren against three-time All-American Courtney Paris, especially in the first half, was admirable. Sure, Paris finished with 14 points and 14 rebounds in 29 minutes to record her 98th straight double-double. But she had to work for everything she got. And work extremely hard on every possession.
“I got a text from Tamika Williams and she told me this is the first time she’s ever seen Tina Charles play like that where she was like that the whole game, where she didn’t take 5-10 minutes off,’’ Geno said. “She was a factor the entire game. I think she struggled a couple times, but I thought her energy level and her intensity level is as good if not better than I’ve ever seen it. We told her we weren’t going to trap. I told her flat out `We’re not trapping (Paris). You’re on your own. You’re going to have to guard the kid, and that’s all there is to it.’ And I kept saying, `She could get 40, and we could still win.’ That kind of pissed her off a little bit I think. But she was determined she was going to do a great job on her by herself because she knew she wasn’t getting any help.’’
Tina, who finished with a double-double of her own (18 points, 10 rebounds) and four blocks, and McLaren combined to hold Paris scoreless in the first half on 0-of-7 shooting. Paris has posted a double-double 13 times in the first half alone during her career. Not this time.
They bodied her in the lane. They made her run the floor. They completely took her out of her rhythm. Kaili finished with two points, five rebounds and two blocks in 15 valiant minutes off the bench.
“They just did a good job of pushing out,’’ Paris said. “Tina, especially, is so athletic. So we rushed a lot and tried to hook it in. I just wasn’t calming down and looking at the target. They just did a good job of pushing out.’’
Said Tina: “I think it was really good. It was really efficient. Just everything that we went over in shootaround we just accomplished on the court and I think it was just an overall, collective effort. And it turned out well I think for the most part.’’

By this time next week someone will own Geno’s Brioni tie and Sherri’s black Cole Haan handbag. The auction will close this Sunday at 8 p.m. Fans can make charitable bids on both items by logging on to www.genoscancerteam.com or www.wbca.org. The proceeds will benefit the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.

Rich

They are two coaches fighting to achieve the same goal every season in different parts of the country. They both run elite programs. One just happens to be regarded as the one of the best there is and the other is just a step or two behind. Geno Auriemma and Sherri Coale are two of the most charismatic coaches in the business. They are walking sound bites, always well dressed and always looking for a new way to better the game as the current cabinet of the WBCA. Coale serves as president. Geno as VP.
But, most of all, they are very good friends too. They talk often, although Geno says that Sherri is not much fun to be around the night before a game. Maybe it’s because her Sooners are 0-6 against the Huskies heading into tonight’s game at Gampel Pavilion. I wouldn’t be much fun either if I kept losing to the same time each time we played.
“I just think that we have one of those friendships that’s going to endure and endure because it was created based on a sincere appreciation for what the other did in this profession,’’ Coale said. “And we have a lot of common interests and we see the game the same way, and whether we’re competing against one another for the same title or working together for the good of the growth of the game I think we’re always going to be good friends. And I always feel blessed by his friendship and feel very fortunate to have had him as a mentor, really, over the last 10 years.’’
Make that 10-plus years. They first met when Geno was recruiting Stacy Hansmeyer out of Norman (Okla.) High School where Sherri was the head coach. Stacy went on to win a national championship at UConn in 2000 and is now in her eighth season as an assistant under Sherri.
Geno liked the way Sherri ran her practices back then, the way she interacted with people and how much she had a hand in what was going on with her team. Once she was hired at Oklahoma in 1996 he made it a point to help her and her program gain national exposure. That’s one of the reasons why he agreed to play in Norman for the first time Dec. 29, 1999. The Huskies were No. 1 at the time and the game drew 10,713 at the Lloyd Nobel Center.
Two years later, UConn and Oklahoma met in the NCAA tournament final in San Antonio.
“For a high school coach, I thought what was pretty impressive,’’ Geno said. “The quality of the drills and what they were teaching. And we just kind of got to talking a lot of basketball, different ideas and different things. Then I ended up coaching a junior national team (in 2001), and she was one of the people that was involved. She ended up being one of my assistants. It’s been a great relationship on a lot of different levels. And I think she’s as good a coach as there is in the country in every aspect: promoting her program, recruiting, teaching the game. I don’t think there’s very many people who do it better than she does.’’

Courtney Paris has had plenty of help during her career. She credits her Piedmont (Calif.) High coach Bryan Gardere. She credits Coale, and she also gives credit to the impact Hansmeyer has had on her over the years. And, by now, she knows exactly why she was affectionately called `Bam Bam’ during her playing days at UConn.
“I love Coach Hansmeyer,’’ Courtney said. “I’m probably closer to her than anybody in Oklahoma. She recruited me and I have a lot of respect for her. So I’m really close to Stacy. She’s tried to (toughen me up). She works with the wing players more now, but last year she used to work with us posts and we definitely understand why her nickname was `Bam Bam.’ She fouls pretty hard. She’s pretty aggressive. But she teaches us to play hard like that. And she’s in charge of rebounding so we definitely have learned to block out at a new level with her. So she does a great job.’’

Here’s Sherri’s take on Paris’ NCAA record streak of 97 straight double-doubles:
“I don’t think that I really can put that in any sort of perspective,’’ she said. “Her double-double streak is beyond phenomenal. Obviously, nobody’s ever done it before. But the sheer madness of being able to do night after night after night after night after night regardless of competition, regardless of venue, regardless of whether a kid feels well or not. There are just so many different things that could come into play and I think the consistency with what she’s gone about that is mind-boggling. I don’t think any of us will really appreciate it in a way that it probably should be appreciated until long after the streak is finished.’’

Enjoy the game.

Rich

On the surface it appears that tomorrow’s game between the Huskies and No. 4 Oklahoma will be decided in the paint between Sooners’ three-time All-American Courtney Paris, who ultimately chose Oklahoma over UConn during the recruiting process, and UConn All-American in-training Tina Charles. They are two of the nation’s elite centers. Paris has a ridiculous 97 straight double-doubles and 102 in 105 career games. She is averaging 15 points, 14 rebounds and 3.2 blocks this season. Charles, who is playing better – and more consistently and focused – than she has at any point in her career is averaging 16.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks on the nation’s top-ranked team.
But, in fact, the early-season Top 5 clash will offer so much more. Yes, Courtney and Tina is the sexy, made-for-ESPN matchup. Yet players like Maya Moore, Renee Montgomery, Kalana Greene, Caroline Doty and Tiffany Hayes for the Huskies and Ashley Paris, Amanda Thompson, Danielle Robinson and Whitney Hand for the Sooners will have much to say about the final outcome for their respective teams.
Maya is expected to be the best player on the floor for a team that is averaging 92 points and shooting 58.5 percent from the field. She’s averaging 17.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.5 blocs in 26.8 minutes. Renee is one of the top two point guards in the nation, while Greene is proving that her severe knee injury is a thing of the past.
“Who’s going to stop Maya Moore? That’s what the game comes down to,’’ Sooners coach Sherri Coale said. “I’m hoping she’ll play a role in that, but I doubt it very seriously. I think they’re very, very balanced and all the attention may be focused on Tina Charles and Courtney Paris in the paint. But the game’s going to be won by the other folks. I think Connecticut’s balance and probably Renee Montgomery gets lost in the shuffle as much as anybody. Of course, I don’t see the paper from the East Coast or know exactly what you guys are talking about. But I think in the national scene, obviously rightly so, Maya Moore gets a tremendous amount of attention and credit. And I do think she is just one of the very, very special athletes to come along in women’s basketball. But at the same time Renee Montgomery makes the ship run. She just is as steady and as good of a decision-maker as there is running the team at the point position in the country right now.’’
For Oklahoma, Ashley Paris is playing exceptionally right now with four double-doubles and two 20-point games. She leads the team in scoring (15.6) and minutes (31.4) and is averaging 10 rebounds. Thompson is solid and Robinson and Hand comprise a dangerous backcourt. The Sooners are averaging 81.0 points and own a plus-14.2 rebounding advantage.
“I think the key to Oklahoma’s team is their players,’’ Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said. “Not just what Courtney Paris brings. They’re averaging (81) points per game and she’s averaging 15. It’s not like she’s getting 50 and everybody else is just making a couple free throws. So I think the success of their team is going to be based on not only how well she plays, but I think the development of their other players has been a big key. That’s one of the reasons why they’ve probably struggled in the NCAA Tournament the three years that she’s been there in some ways because other players have to make plays. You’re not going to be able to go with just one thing. And I watch them play on film their other players are really, really good. I told Sherri that the other night. I watched the Marist game (Wednesday), and I just think they’ve got a lot of really good players at all the other positions. And Ashley Paris is playing the best basketball she’s ever played. So when you look at their team, they’ve got as many pieces that could fit into a national championship picture as anybody else in the country. They’ve got good depth. They’ve got good speed. They’ve got good size. They shoot the ball pretty well. I don’t think anybody will be shocked if they’re in the Final Four or win the national championship.’’
As far what type of strategy Geno will employ tomorrow in an attempt to neutralize Paris and the Sooners, he wouldn’t specifically say.
“We might play with five guards,’’ he said. “We might play with Maya at the center. Then they’ll have to go zone or (Paris) is going to have to guard Maya or Kalana. I just don’t want Sherri to think she’s the smartest person in the building Sunday night. We’ve got a couple things we might do. They may not work, but we may try them. I have been known to come up with a good idea once in a while.’’

The Sooners have lost to the only other Top 10 team they have faced this season – falling to then-No. 4 North Carolina 80-79 at home last Sunday. They are 1-17 during the regular season and 2-27 overall against Top 10 opponents. Needless to say this is another big spot for Oklahoma to earn a big win.
“I don’t know that there’s an adjective out there that justly describes it,’’ Coale said. “That’s what we have to do. It’s like I was explaining to a young coach a couple of weeks ago. When you start setting your goals and you’re building a program goal-setting is very easy. Once you go to the Final Four you have a team goal-setting meeting and pretty much the answer is win a national championship because there’s nothing left and you don’t want to go backwards. So I think for program, for all the things that we’ve done … We’ve won more Big 12 titles than any other team in our league. We’re third in the country in attendance. We’ve been to the NCAA tournament nine years in a row. But what else is out there that we need to do? Obviously, we need to beat somebody we’re not supposed to and the better you get the fewer folks there are with that title, but the harder that task is. So we’re sitting on the cusp of an amazing opportunity and at some point if we want to catapult our program into that … I feel like we’re already in the upper echelon, but if we want to be with the very cream of the crop, the guys that are mentioned year in and year out for a national championship, we’ve got to beat some of those guys. And its starts with Connecticut.’’

There are still tickets available for the game, which will feature a charity auction by both coaches. Geno will auction off an autographed Brioni tie and Sherri will auction off a black Cole Haan handbag.
The auction will begin at 8 p.m. and close at 8 p.m. Dec. 6. Fans can make separate charitable bids on both items at www.genoscancerteam.com or www.wbca.org. The proceeds from the auction will benefit the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.

Rich

Full-session tickets for the Big East tournament will go on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets Monday at 10 a.m. The event, which will feature all 16 teams for the first time, will be held at the XL Center March 6-10.
Packages for all 15 games are $99, which is discounted by nearly one half of the face value. They can also be ordered by phone at 860-525-4500, 203-624-0033 or 413-733-2500 and online at www.xlcenter.com or www.ticketmaster.com.
Tickets will be available at the XL Center box office Tuesday, beginning at noon. For group sales (10 or more) information and discounts, contact the XL Center at 860-548-2000.

Heather Buck was not reevaluated by team doctor Tom Trojian today. According to a team spokesman, she will be reevaluated tomorrow and her status will be revealed Sunday.
Buck has missed the first four games and has not practiced in weeks due to mononucleosis. Should she received a favorable review from Trojian she could be cleared to begin light activity.

How about this stat: Freshmen Caroline Doty and Tiffany Hayes have committed a combined six turnovers in 188 minutes though the first four games. Caroline has committed just two in 103 minutes. Tiffany 4 in 85. Not a bad way to start your college career. No wonder Geno has been so high on both of them since the preseason started.
“They’re good with the ball,’’ Geno said. “They handle it. They know how to get out of trouble. They know when to make the pass, when to make the right pass, which one to make. And they’re not rushed. It’s very hard to rush those two. I think that’s where turnovers come from. When you’re rushed.’’

There are still tickets left for Sunday night’s showdown with No. 4 Oklahoma. Come and get them.

Rich

Freshman Heather Buck began dealing with a scratchy throat Nov. 3, just three days before UConn’s exhibition opener against Stonehill. She didn’t think much of it at the time, hoping that it was nothing more than a common cold.
A few days would pass and it became increasingly difficult for her to swallow. So difficult that Buck could not eat for two days. It was at this point that she knew there was a more significant problem with her health.
Buck alerted team officials and tests confirmed that she was stricken by mononucleosis. She missed her fourth straight game Tuesday when top-ranked UConn defeated BYU 96-47 in its first road game of the season.
“I just never thought I’d get mono,’’ Buck said. “Ever. But when I wasn’t eating because I couldn’t swallow I knew that it was a problem. Anybody who knows me knows that I’ll pretty much each through anything.’’
Buck, who has only had to miss a couple of classes during this stretch, said she is feeling between 80 and 85 percent health. She will be reevaluated Friday, when she could be cleared by team doctor Tom Trojian to begin light activity, which she hopes will include jogging.
At this point, Buck has been permitted to shoot standing in place and nothing more. Her return to active duty still remains unclear. She hopes to be back in two weeks. However, a definitive date continues to be in the hands of team medical personnel.
“I’m actually feeling a lot better,’’ Buck said. “I’ve been feeling much more myself in the last couple of days. Right now I don’t even think I’m even really supposed to be up and around too much. But really I haven’t been knocked out and in bed.’’
The key for Buck Friday will be the condition of her spleen. Mononucleosis causes it to enlarge, which forces athletes to shut it down until the illness has subsided. Missing games has hurt. But missing practice is what has caused Buck much anxiety.
She was making progress during the preseason, and at a long 6-foot-3 she was tabbed as a player who could come off the bench to provide the Huskies with some minutes in the post.
“That was the thing that made me most nervous,’’ Buck said. “Not my spleen. Not being sick. Missing practice. On the side, I’m trying to make sure that I’m still mentally involved and paying attention and picking up all of the things so that when I come back I’ll be ahead mentally and know where I’m supposed to be going. But, still, watching and running it still isn’t the same. So that’s going to be difficult, and I’m missing all of the conditioning too now.’’
UConn coach Geno Auriemma isn’t concerned with the mental aspect of Buck’s game. He said that she has picked things up quickly when she’s been on the court. But he, too, is concerned with how long it will take Buck to rebound physically in lieu of her illness.
Junior Kaili McLaren, who had a season-high 10 points in 13 minutes against BYU, is the only reserve post player in UConn’s primary rotation right now. She is averaging 5.0 points, 1.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 14.0 minutes. So the opportunity is there for Buck to solidify a role once she regains her health and is again able to actively participate in practice.
“I think so much of it has to do with the comfort level that they have on the court and how quickly they can fit in,’’ Auriemma said. “You can tell a lot about a freshman. They come in as a freshman and they can play and they can compete and they can function at real high pace right away. And that a lot of times if you get hurt it doesn’t matter because you already have it and you can just step back in and not worry about it. But I think in Heather’s case because of what we were hoping to get from her was an awful lot of repetitions in practice and get bigger and get stronger. And for a big kid it just takes longer anyway, and especially for someone who’s not used to playing at that level of competition on a regular basis.
“I think the physicalness of the game is obviously something that’s going to be difficult for her And you just have to get in there and do. That’s all there is to it. But I don’t worry about her not being involved or grasping the concepts that we’re talking about. Those will be OK for her. It’s just how far back is she going to be physically because she hasn’t had a chance to get out here and be a part of it. It’s still November and you don’t play your for first Big East game until January. So there’s a lot of time to impact the season. But I just want to see what she looks like physically when she’s cleared and see what happens.’’

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

Rich

Former UConn standout and CPTV current color commentator Meghan (Pattyson) Culmo gave birth to a baby girl Monday. Claire Gabriella was born 8 pounds, nine ounces and was 20 inches long. It is the third child for Meghan and her husband, Angelo. God Bless.

In other news at the Marriott Center, BYU personnel were scurrying about looking for a soda with some caffeine in it for Huskies associate head coach Chris Dailey. Oops.

Rich

Huskies coach Geno Auriemma and Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale will help kick off Jimmy V Week Sunday night by auctioning off a tie and a handbag, respectively. Geno will auction off a Brioni tie, which is valued at $200, and Sherri will auction off a black Cole Haan handbag, which is valued at $450.
The auction will begin Sunday at 8 p.m. and close Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. Fans can make separate charitable bids on both items by logging on to www.genoscancerteam.com or www.wbca.org. The proceeds from the auction will go toward the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.
Geno will also auction off the ties he wears during each home game in February – vs. Rutgers Feb. 3; vs. Pittsburgh Feb. 15; vs. Notre Dame Feb. 22; vs. Villanova Feb. 24; and vs. Seton Hall on Senior Night Feb. 28.

By the way, Renee Montgomery and the Huskies could care less that Sunday’s matchup with Oklahoma, who fell 80-79 to North Carolina at home Sunday, could have been the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown at Gampel Pavilion since the 2001 Big East tournament final when the second-ranked Huskies beat No. 1 Notre Dame 78-76 in the same venue. Rankings don’t matter to the Huskies. Just wins.
Whether the Sooners rest at No. 2 or their current spot of No. 4 in the AP poll, it doesn’t matter. The Huskies will receive their first true test of the season against All-American Tina Charles and the Sooners.
“It doesn’t really matter to me,’’ Montgomery said. “They’re still going to be the same team they were. It just would have been a different ranking when they came here. You know what? They might be even better now that they lost. Once you lose you go home, you evaluate, you practice harder. So they’re probably going to be a better team than they were if they would’ve won.’’

You know how they say you learn something new every day? Well, that holds true in Utah. While talking to tonight’s color commentator Kristen Kozlowski yesterday during practice she told me that her husband played football at the Y. OK. So with me being a somewhat sheltered individual with a small-town mentality I took that to mean that her husband played football at the YMCA. We always call it the Y at home. I used to workout there as a matter of fact. But, of course, I wasn’t even close. Kristen quickly cleared up the situation by saying to the folks here the Y is short for BYU. It was just another of the many instances in my life when I felt like an absolute idiot.
In the future, any time I need a reminder as to what the Y is I can refer to the large white Y on the side of the mountains in the backdrop of the football stadium.

Rich