UConn women's basketball

The Huskies will play in the Maggie Dixon Classic next season for the second time in three seasons when they meet Ohio State at Madison Square Garden Dec. 19. Rutgers will meet Texas A&M in the other game of the doubleheader.
UConn defeated Penn State in its first appearance in the event last season.

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Former UConn forward Willnett Crockett was awaiting a phone call regarding an opportunity to play professionally in France last July. What she received instead changed her entire course of action.
Crockett received a text message from Temple coach Tonya Cardoza, who was an assistant for the Huskies during her career. Cardoza wanted to know how she felt about coaching. It was a profession that Crockett wanted to get into at some point in the future.
But Cardoza wasn’t talking about the future. Brittany Hunter, another former Husky, had left her staff after just one season to return to school. Cardoza wanted Crockett to fill the void.
It didn’t take her long to accept Cardoza’s invitation, viewing it as an opportunity she could not pass up. Even at the age of 25.
“That was something I thought about,’’ Crockett said referring to her desire to continue her playing career. “I’m still young. But it was a great situation. It’s somebody who I loved when I was in school and I knew that she was going to make sure that I was taken care of. She was going to make sure that I knew the ins and outs in coaching. And why not do it with somebody that you know. I think because I had a relationship with her it was kind of one of those things like, `Oh, wow. She thinks that much of me that she thinks I’m capable of doing something like this.’ And sometimes you just don’t want to pass things up. You don’t know if a job like that is going to come along again, and it was just something I had to say … Playing, I’d rather walk away from it then be hurt and be devastated and be like, `I can’t play anymore.’ So I stuck with it and I said, `You know what? Why not?’’’
Crockett went to Temple for an official interview in August and was hired. She said she works with the post players and recruits as well as doing other things for the team.
The eighth-seeded Owls could meet UConn in the second round Tuesday night. They will meet ninth-seeded James Madison in the first round today.
“When I first got the job, Willnett was somebody I thought about hiring but she was still playing,’’ Cardoza said. “When Brittany decided to go back to school … Will is just a person I respect. She’s loyal. She’s a hard worker. I just had a conversation the other day. She’s a lot like myself when I was at UConn my first couple years where she doesn’t say a lot. She only speaks when spoken to. I told her, `You’re a lot like I am, and one of the things that’s going to help you grow is if you get out of your shell a lot earlier. There are things you have you might be thinking and you need to utter those things now and not hold onto them.’ But I think she’s done a great job recruiting. Our players have improved drastically over the last couple months with her. I think she’s going to be a really good coach. The players respect her. She is a loyal individual and I’m glad she gave up playing to come and coach with me.’’
Crockett scored 602 points and grabbed 583 rebounds in 131 games in her career with the Huskies, one that spanned 2002-2006. She was drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks with the 22nd overall pick in 2006 and played five games for Phoenix Mercury in 2008. She has also played professionally in Latvia, Africa and Lithuania.
“I’m actually enjoying myself,’’ Crockett said. “It was a decision that I don’t regret and I’m glad that I made. I think I like teaching, period. I think coaching, I know for me, they did a great job of bringing out something I didn’t know I had in me. I think this is a valuable time in their lives where you need somebody to instill something in you. So if I can give that to them that’s something I wanted to do. And to do it with Tonya, somebody I know, why not?’’

Temple has another UConn connection in Trumbull High graduate and Shelton native Stacey Nasser. She is in her second season as a graduate assistant under Cardoza, who like Crockett, pursued Nasser after she graduated from UConn in 2008.
Nasser, who had previously been a manager at UConn, will earn a master’s degree in sport management in May. She said she returns home every couple of months.
“I’ve enjoyed it so far,’’ Nasser said. “It’s almost over, but I’ve enjoyed it a lot. I think my next step is probably a (director of basketball operations) job or something of that effect and then maybe eventually get into coaching (at the college level).’’

Cardoza was in Connecticut last Saturday to see Kolbe Cathedral’s Cherelle Moore play.

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The Huskies are facing a run towards history. They could become the first women’s basketball team to complete back-to-back undefeated seasons. They are heavy favorites to roll through the tournament and win their seventh national championship. And they have won an NCAA record 72 straight games.
Are the players feeling any pressure? Hardly. They played a game of Pictionary in the locker room Saturday morning that featured much laughter and hooting and hollering. Once UConn took the court for its scheduled open practice the players managed to squeeze 11 basketballs into a hoop, with Maya Moore getting the last one on top of the pile before being mobbed by her teammates in the lane.
This is not a team that is tight as it braces to begin the NCAA tournament.
“Maybe C.D. is,’’ senior Kalana Greene said. “You know how C.D. is. We always play a couple games in the locker room just to kill time. But Coach (Geno Auriemma) said we shouldn’t be the same people we were during the year. We should come with a sense of urgency. But, with us, we don’t want to be uptight and nervous because we’ve never played a game like this season. We weren’t nervous going down to Oklahoma or nervous against Stanford. So why be nervous for another game? This is what we love to do. We take it seriously. When we go on the court and go to practice, it’s all business. There’s no laughing and games there. But when we’re in the locker room we’re just having out and having fun just trying to kill time. Except for C.D.’’

Greene said she expects about a dozen friends and family members to be in attendance at the Ted Constant Convocation Center tomorrow when the Huskies meet 16th-seeded Southern. Much of the group will drive in from Greene’s hometown of Saint Stephen, S.C., which is about five hours from Norfolk, Va.
“I just look at it economically, like 10 people trying to get on a flight to come somewhere else is a lot of money,’’ Greene said. “You drive two cars and it probably pays for one flight right there. I think it’s good. It’s my last year, and a lot of people who weren’t able to make a lot of games during the season will be able to drive down. I was screaming and yelling during the Selection Show that we were playing in Norfolk. It’s not often that your family from like 800 miles away can come see you play.’’

ESPN will utilize whip-around coverage tomorrow on the ESPN2HD, meaning the UConn game will not be shown in its entirety. Fans wishing to watch the game in its entirety can do so on the standard ESPN2 channel and on ESPN360.com.

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The approach will be the same as it’s been all season for the Huskies. They were not distracted by their pursuit of their then-NCAA-record 70-game winning streak. They contend that they won’t be distracted by the opportunity to become the first women’s team to complete back-to-back undefeated seasons.
“You can’t look at it like we’re making history,’’ senior Kalana Greene said. “We’re just trying to win games and win a national championship. And beat Southern. So you’ve got to win all these games coming up to say we made history because it’s fragile. You could lose. Teams you’ve never played before … you’re not familiar with them. It’s so easy to lose. It would be hard for a team to beat us, but it’s so easy for us just to lose if we slip up, miss a box out or a real off shooting night. It’s easy to lose. We know it’s fragile. So, history, we can look at it after whenever the last game is.’’
Maya Moore said the Huskies will not change anything they’ve done up to this point just because it’s the NCAA tournament. As cliché as it might sound, they have taken things one day at a time, one game at a time. Coach Geno Auriemma is a short-term type of guy, and the players have bought into this philosophy.
“You don’t change at this point in the year,’’ Moore said. “You go with what you’ve worked so hard for. You either have it or you don’t. And I feel like we’re coming to a point in the season where it’s coming together and we’re just trying to sharpen up on the things we’re already good at and try to cover up on the areas we’re that we’re not as sharp at. But you don’t really do a lot of change. You just keep doing what you’re doing. We’re going to have to continue to do a good job of keeping our blinders up and playing one game at a time.’’
The only thing that will change for the Huskies as they enter the tournament will be the fact that they are no longer chasing a national championship that had eluded them since winning the last of three straight championships in 2004.
Aside from having won 72 straight games, UConn is now hunted for being the defending national champion too.
“This is water we’ve never been in … coming off of a national championship and having people want more than anything to beat you and people tired of hearing about us,’’ Moore said. “People just wanting to see Connecticut go down. And knowing that they’re coming after you that way, it absolutely makes you have to be more focused. I think we’re going to have to be even more focused this year because we’re not really chasing that first national championship. We’re trying to do something we’ve never done before and that’s going to require a lot more of us than it did last year.’’

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