UConn women's basketball

Full-session ticket packages for the Big East tournament will go on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets Tuesday at 10 a.m. The event will be held March 5-9 at the XL Center in Hartford.
The packages to all 15 games of the tournament are $99 each, which is discounted nearly 50 percent from face value. To charge tickets by phone, call Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000. Tickets can also be purchased on-line at www.xlcenter.com or www.ticketmaster.com and they will be available for purchase at the XL Center box office starting Tuesday at noon.
For group sales (10 or more) information and discounts, call Cheri Lisko of the XL Center at 860-548-2000.

Rich

A look back at the WBCA Classic:
UConn 91, Hofstra 46
UConn 86, Richmond 37
UConn 87, Clemson 48
TURNING POINT – How about the opening tap? The Huskies were not tested. Although, they did trail for a total of 2:39 Sunday against Clemson. That was a first for the season. UConn, who has often looked as good as last season’s unbeaten team, won the three games by an average of 44.3 points. The Huskies shot 56.3 percent from the field, including 40.0 percent from 3-point range. They also had a plus-17.4 rebounding advantage and forced 26.3 turnovers.
UNSUNG HERO – Kalana Greene had a career-high 28 points (9-of-12 FG), eight rebounds and four steals against Clemson to lock up a spot on the all-tournament team. She averaged 15.3 points on 70.8 percent shooting, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals in 22.3 minutes in the three games.
BEST ‘X’ AND/OR ‘O’ – The Huskies showed tremendous versatility offensively over the final two games. With Richmond forcing them to shoot from the perimeter Saturday, they made 13 3-pointers, including a team record 10 in the first half. Against Clemson, UConn missed its first nine 3-point attempts and finished 2-for-15. Maya Moore and Tiffany Hayes were each 0-for-5. However, the Huskies pounded the ball inside against the Tigers to tune of scoring 62 points in the paint.
“(Saturday) we made 10 (3-pointers) in the first half,’’ Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said. “(Sunday) we showed our versatility by missing the first (nine) and then we decided we might as well just keep throwing it inside. So, yeah, we’re pretty versatile. When we’re making them we keep shooting them, and when we’re not we throw it to Tina. But that’s what’s going to happen. Shooting’s kind of funny. Some days they all go in and some days they don’t. And that’s why you’ve got to have a consistent style of play that gets you some transition buckets, gets you some free throws, gets you some post-ups. So you’re not just a throw it around the perimeter and shoot 3s kind of team. Some nights it’s good to be like that, but I don’t know that you would go anywhere just living on that exclusively.’’
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS – The tournament drew 25,756, which was not too bad considering it was Thanksgiving weekend and the student did not return to campus until Sunday. Former UConn All-American Sue Bird and UConn-bound recruit Bria Hartley were on hand Friday when Auriemma became the fastest coach to reach 700 wins. UConn recruit Betnijah Laney was in the house Sunday. So was Naugatuck resident Mike Carson, a 19 year old UConn student. He won $1,000 by making a layup, a foul shot, a 3-pointer and a half-court shot in 30 seconds.
LOOKING AHEAD – The Huskies have the day off today. They will host Vermont Thursday at Gampel Pavilion at 7:30. It’s a rematch of last season’s first-round NCAA tournament game, which UConn won 104-65 at the same venue March 22.
The Catamounts (4-0) are led by seniors Courtnay Pilypaitis (21.0 ppg) and May Kotsopoulos (20.3). They have not played since defeating Dartmouth last Wednesday.
“It’s good Thursday because we’re playing a really good team I think, better than most think,’’ Auriemma said. “People around the country will say, `Who’s Vermont?’ They beat BC. They beat NC State. When we saw them play last year, I was really impressed with them. We played them here. Now they’re all seniors. I am really looking forward to that game Thursday night. That should be a lot of fun.’’
BY THE NUMBERS
12 – Steals by Maya Moore in three games
13 – Consecutive in-season tournament championships for UConn
21 – Total rebounds for Kelly Faris, one less than Tina Charles
144 – Points in the paint scored by UConn

Rich

Caroline Doty scored a season-high 17 points in 29 minutes in Saturday’s win over Richmond in the WBCA Classic. She had nine points and a career-high nine assists in 28 minutes against Hofstra Friday. Playing in her third game in as many days today, Geno Auriemma gave her a rest.
Doty, who continues to work her way back from a torn ACL suffered last January, played just 10 minutes in an 87-48 win over Clemson as UConn clinched its 13th straight in-season tournament championship. She did not play the final 8:53 of the first half and ultimately sat out the final 18:11 of the game after starting the second half.
“She’s sick, just like everybody else,’’ Auriemma said. “She’s coughing and hacking. Plus three games in three days is a lot for her right now at this stage. So I thought it would be a perfect time to give her a rest. I’m usually not the kind of guy that’s going to bench somebody that played as well as she did (Saturday). There wasn’t enough time for her to (tick) me off between (Saturday’s) game and today’s game.’’
Doty is averaging 10.3 points and a team-high 5.0 assists in 25.0 minutes through the first six games.

Mike Carson, a 19 year old UConn student from Naugatuck, won $1,000 by making a layup, a foul shot, a 3-pointer and a half-court shot in 30 seconds during a time-out in the first half. He badly missed his first three free throws before making it and then going on to hit the 3-pointer and the halfcourt shot on the first attempt.

UConn recruit Betnijah Laney, a 6-foot junior wing from Smyrna High in Delaware, was in attendance today.

Rich

Lorin Dixon has not practiced or played in a game since suffering a strained left hamstring against Vanguard Nov. 9. Kaili McLaren was forced to miss the season opener against Northeastern Nov. 14 with an injury to her right foot. This week Jacquie Fernandes missed several days of practice and Friday’s game against Hofstra due to an illness.
This is hardly a pity party for the top-ranked Huskies. Yes, they have yet to be at full strength this season. But they have still managed to win their first five games by 48.4 points. And, frankly, Geno Auriemma thinks that not having a full complement of players in practice has proved to be beneficial.
The Huskies have had no choice but to pay attention to the things Auriemma is implementing and to make sure that the execution is at a high level. Another benefit for the players is that Auriemma has not buried them with grueling three-hour practices due to the lack of numbers.
Entering today’s game against Clemson in the finale of the WBCA Classic, Auriemma said he is very pleased with the focus of this team right now. Of course, it varies day to day. But, generally speaking, it has been right where he hoped it would be at this point as the Huskies take aim at a second straight national championship.
“For me I have to make sure it’s the kind of practices that kind of feed into that kind of focus because like any other kids today I don’t know that they lock in for a whole season or for a whole month,’’ Auriemma said. “To me, with kids today it’s like day to day. You might have them today and if you’re not careful you won’t have them tomorrow. So so far they’ve been really, really good about that. They pay attention. They listen. They’re picking things up pretty quickly. We don’t have them all in practice. We don’t have real long practices. We get done what we have to get done and then we’re off of there. So they know that they have to get it and they’re getting it. It’s been a pleasure so far.’’

Richmond coach Michael Shafer said after the game last night that he did not want to give the Huskies layups. He wanted to force them to make shots from the perimeter. It was a pick-your-poison type of thing, and the strategy didn’t work as UConn set a team record for a half by making 10 3-pointers in the first half and finished with 13 in the game on 21 attempts.
Caroline Doty was 5-for-7 from 3-point range. Maya Moore was 3-for-5. Tiffany Hayes was 2-for-3. Kelly Faris was 2-for-4. And Meghan Gardler was 1-for-2. The final total tied for fifth-most all-time in team history.
“We did not want them to get layups,’’ Shafer said. “I felt if we could make them shoot the ball from the perimeter as opposed to shooting from the inside that the odds were in our favor. We did not intend to give them open shots, and I thought that’s exactly what happened. We didn’t contest their shooters and they hit them. When we did contest they actually missed a couple, which was shocking in the first half.’’

Rich

Kaili McLaren was tired of listening to a humble Geno Auriemma try to downplay the fact that he had become the fastest Division I basketball coach ever to reach 700 wins Friday night. In his 25th season with the Huskies, Auriemma needed just 822 games to reach the milestone. During his postgame remarks he said countless times that he does not sit around and stew about such individual milestones that decorate his Hall of Fame resume. When asked repeatedly to put No. 700 in perspective, he struggled to find the words. Near the end, McLaren finally stepped in …
“He won’t say it,’’ McLaren said. “It’s amazing. It’s incredible. It’s unbelievable.’’
The feat is everything McLaren said and more. Along with fellow seniors Tina Charles, Kalana Greene, Meghan Gardler and Jacquie Fernandes, McLaren was around to celebrate No. 600 too. That was Dec. 31, 2006 against Sacred Heart. That’s how rapidly the wins have come. Auriemma needed just 106 games to ascend to the 700-win plateau.
“Surprised? No. Because Coach always gets us to where we need to be,’’ McLaren said. “But exciting? Yeah. It’s kind of cool to be here for 600 and 700. And it’s so early in the season and we still have a chance to win a championship too. So this could be a really special year again.’’
It is the second time that Auriemma has reached a milestone in just 106 games. He went from 200 wins (vs. Pittsburgh Jan. 2, 1995) to 300 (vs. Rhode Island Nov. 29, 1997) in that same span. He needed only 104 games to jump from 400 (vs. Illinois Dec. 10, 2000) to 500 (vs. Texas April 6, 2003).
The Huskies have won at least 30 games in four straight seasons and in 14 of the last 16 overall. They have been undefeated three times in this span (1994-59, 2001-02, 2008-09).
“I think it is truly amazing for someone to not only have the mindset of excellence and striving for perfection, but to do it consistently for so many years,’’ All-American Maya Moore said. “No matter what kind of team you have and no matter who is there, no matter whether you just started to coach or had an undefeated season last year, he is always going to coach and demand greatness from his players. He has had great players, and it takes great players to get that many wins, but if you don’t have somebody leading who is going to consistently keep the bar high and put the effort in to demand that, you won’t be successful. He has to be engaged and give everything he has to us every day. He has been doing that for so many years. So I’m not surprised he has 700 wins because he does that every day at every practice. He has great teams that believe in what he’s doing and want to win for him.’’

One topic Auriemma did take time to address last night – in his patented sarcastic nature – was the number of losses he has endured throughout his career.
“How many losses? 122? If our guys learned all the stuff that we’re teaching them and if they really paid attention we wouldn’t have 122 losses,’’ he said. “I’ll tell you that right now. Those 122 losses … That’s (garbage).’’

Here’s how the postgame antics by the players came to light:
“Well, it was a kind of a long process,’’ Moore said. “I think Coach (Chris) Dailey made sure we all had T-shirts. We knew we wanted to incorporate them somehow. It was just bouncing around different ideas, just hanging around the office. I think we came up with the `Priceless’ idea from the MasterCard commercial. We were just hanging out in (assistant coach) Shea (Ralph’s) office, and Kelly (Faris) brought that up. So it was just kind of a combination of bouncing around some ideas. Heather (Buck) was the MVP of the artistic side of the project. Go Heather. It was just something fun we wanted to do for Coach. I don’t think what we did in any way is going to reward him for everything he’s out into this program, but it was something fun for the fans and something we could do together.’’
The Huskies donned white T-shirts with Auriemma’s face on them and held up pieces of cardboard highlighting his career accomplishments and the word “priceless.’’ The backs of the shirts spelled “Congrats 700.’’

Rich

Senior center Tina Charles has been named the 2009 USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year, it was announced Friday. The decision was made by the USA Basketball Board of Directors.
Charles had two stints with USA Basketball during the off-season. She led the U.S. to the gold medal at the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia July 2-11 and then helped the U.S. Women’s National Team win the gold medal at the Ekaterinburg International Invitational in Russia Oct. 9-11.
“It feels great,’’ Charles said. “It’s a huge honor. Just all the hard work … I believe I started playing USA Basketball when I was like 15, and just the fact that they always continue to invite me and I just wanted to show dedication to USA Basketball and just how much it means to me.’’
Charles averaged team-highs of 16.1 points and 8.1 rebounds in 19.0 minutes as the U.S. won its third straight gold medal at the World University Games. She then averaged 12.3 points and 6.7 rebounds in 16.7 minutes off the bench for the National Team, finishing second on the team in scoring and rebounding behind Angel McCoughtry (15.3 points, 7.3 rebounds).
Charles spent 39 days this year training or competing with a USA Basketball team. USA Basketball will now nominate her for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s 2010 Sportswoman of the Year, which is expected to be announced in January.
“The only thing more impressive than Tina’s play this past summer was the amount of time she committed to USA Basketball,’’ USA Basketball Executive Director/CEO Jim Tooley said. “After leading the USA to gold in the World University Games, she returned to help the USA to a second gold medal in Russia and proved herself on the court against professionals. We are grateful for her service in 2009, and we expect great things from her in the future.’’

Rich

In a poll that appeared in the Nov. 30 issue of ESPN The Magazine, Geno Auriemma was tabbed as the “Last Coach You’d Want To Play for.’’ According to the snippet only 24 players actually answered the question, with Auriemma garnering eight votes and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt receiving four.
However, I know for certain that there are 11 players this season and hundreds over Auriemma’s 25-year, Hall of Fame tenure who would emphatically beg to differ. Ordinary athletes simply cannot play for him. He is a perfectionist. It takes elite players who are unselfish and buy into his team-first mantra.
And the results are extraordinary – 699 wins, six national championships, 10 trips to the Final Four, 17 Big East regular season championships and 15 conference tournament championships. Not to mention the things he’s done for his players over the years that often go unnoticed.
On this Thanksgiving Day, Auriemma is at it again. He will host a number of the Huskies who are not going home or who do not have relatives or friends in the area at his home for a feast.
“To you guys (the media), it looks like he doesn’t like us at all,’’ senior Kaili McLaren said. “But we’re over his house like once a month. He enjoys having us. Him and Mrs. A and the family … They’re so nice and they’re so hospitable you kind of always want to go over there.’’
“It just speaks to the family atmosphere that we have around here and the fact that he looks at us as his daughters,’’ All-American Maya Moore said. “We don’t think that’s unusual. That’s how it is. You just know it coming in here, just being a part of the program. (Freshman) Kelly (Faris) will continue to see that as she grows in this program. He’s another father to us. He’ll do anything for us.’’
The relationship that he has with his players is one that Auriemma has come to truly appreciate. He is a father-figure for the Huskies while they are away from home. And he wouldn’t have it any other way, especially during the holidays.
“The more I see what goes on with Division I men and women, whatever, I probably appreciate it more that you can do that, that players feel comfortable enough that they’ll want to spend the holiday at your house,’’ Auriemma said. “And in some cases if their mom is up here and they want to come over … Yeah, I’d be disappointed in some ways if I couldn’t do that. I don’t like them being here as it is on Thanksgiving Day. So the fact that they’re here … I just leave it up to them. If you want to come over, great. If you don’t that’s fine too. As long as I know you’ve got a place to go. That’s always my concern. Make sure you have a place to go. I just don’t want anybody being by themselves at this time of the year.’’

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! Enjoy your day with your family and friends.

Rich

Junior point guard Lorin Dixon is making progress as she continues to deal with a strained left hamstring. However, it’s not enough progress that will allow her to play Friday when the top-ranked Huskies host Hofstra in the WBCA Classic at Gampel Pavilion.
Dixon suffered the injury in UConn’s exhibition finale against Vanguard Nov. 9. She will miss her fourth straight regular season game.
“I’m feeling a lot better,’’ Dixon said. “I’m just trying to see how soon I can get back out here, but we’re making a lot of progress.’’
Dixon took part in some individual drills prior to practice today. She also ran “for a while’’ before she began to feel pain. Dixon still has yet to take part in nay team-related activities at practice.
While Dixon will definitively not play against Hofstra, the possibility remains that she could see some time against either Richmond Saturday or Clemson Sunday. Huskies coach Geno Auriemma was non-committal on when she might be able to return.
Auriemma said a potential return against Vermont Dec. 3 might be the most realistic scenario.
“I think her conditioning and her timing and all that you really can’t maintain that if you’re not playing,’’ Auriemma said. “So I would venture say that when she’s ready to go she’ll practice a little bit. She’ll play a little bit and then as time goes on she’ll practice more and play more. But a lot’s going to be determined by how she reacts to being put under that kind of stress now with her leg. If she reacts positively then we’ll just keep adding to her workload.
“I don’t know that she’s going to play this weekend. If she hasn’t practiced (today) she’s not going to practice tomorrow so that puts her out for Friday. And beyond that I don’t know, but for certain she’s not playing Friday. Since we don’t have practice any more days I don’t know where that puts her. So maybe she can get a couple minutes or maybe she gets nothing. So, hopefully, the Vermont game.’’

Caroline Doty, who has 17 assists and three turnovers in 83 minutes this season, played the point today in practice when her and Tiffany Hayes were in the backcourt together. Hayes has started the first three games at the point, but she has eight assists and a team-high 13 turnovers in 68 minutes.

Seniors Kalana Greene (1,000 points) and Tina Charles (1,000 rebounds) will be honored for their accomplishments prior to Friday’s game against Hofstra.

Bonnie Samuelson, a 6-foot-2 junior forward from Huntington Beach, Calif. (Edison High), was making an unofficial visit today. She was on hand for practice at Gampel Pavilion. She participated in the USA Basketball U-16 Trials in May and played for Russ Davis’ AAU team (Cal Swish).

The UConn Student-Athlete Advisory Committee will conduct a Toy Drive at the Vermont game at Gampel Pavilion.

Rich