The first thing Renee Montgomery wanted to know was whether a brand new Honda comes with being the women's basketball winner of the Honda Award.

I guess she will find out as she beat out fellow finalists Maya Moore, Angel McCoughtry and Courtney Paris to win the award. She now goes into the pool of candidates to win the Honda Award for all collegiate sports.

"I think it is a bonus," Montgomery said. "It is exciting but everything that has happened in the last week, I didn't think anything could get better. Now to come here and I won the Honda Award, it just looks like things continuously get better so it is a blessing."

Montgomery said she will leave for Minnesota on May 11, one day after she graduates from UConn, to prepare for her first pro training camp.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma was a bit emotional addressing his appointment as the U.S. women's national team coach. Born in Italy, Auriemma said he does not take the honor of being picked to represent your country lightly and as a naturalized citizen, he is moved by the chance to be the U.S. coach in the 2012 Olympics.

"I don’t know if I can adequately describe my feelings and my emotions when I was asked to do this and how I felt ever since," Auriemma said. "It’s an opportunity that if you’re very fortunate comes once in your life and I never thought I would ever have this opportunity. It’s just overwhelming, the emotions that run through you. What an incredible honor it is to be selected."

It is Auriemma's first head coaching appointment for USA Basketball since the 2001 Auriemma-coach team lost in the semifinals and finished third in the 2001 Junior World Championship.

"That trip to the Czech Republic taught me that we are USA Basketball and we do things a certain way," Auriemma said. "Had we thrown the game against the Russians, we would have played Australia in the semifinals and the Russians would have played the Czech Republic on the Czech Republic's home court. But us being USA Basketball, the thought of us doing that never entered my mind. You always had to take the hard way, you always had to take the difficult way but I learned a lot on how to manage games because I made a couple mistakes in that game. We are up nine, I sub a couple guys in and before I can get them back out, it is a tie score and it is all getting away from us. I learned a lot and the assistant I have are going to be people who have done it and hopefully I am a little smarter."

The UConn coaching staff will head out at least three exposure events this weekend. While much of the focus will be on targeting players in the sophomore class, UConn would like to bring in at least one more post player. While Orsi Szecsi out of Oak Hill (Va.) Academy and Sheronne Vails from Arundel High in Gambrills, Md. are the uncommitted post players who have been on UConn's recruiting radar, it appears as if this weekend the UConn coaches will look to identify a new post player or two to pursue. UConn already has commitments from center Stefanie Dolson, forward Michala Johnson and wing players Samarie Walker and Lauren Engeln. Guard Bria Hartley is the only other high school junior holding a scholarship offer from UConn, which would like to bring in a class of six next season.

Lastly, look for the list of invitees to the World University Games and Under-19 training camps to be released in the next week or so. Obviously the people at USA Basketball have been a little busy finalizing the details of naming Auriemma as the senior women's national team coach and now can turn their attention to the training camps for those two teams and the Under-16 squad.