Blogs > Elm City to Eagleville

A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Geno's take on recruiting

I spend a lot of time on the "who" part of recruiting, updating the results of kids coming to UConn and do what I can to stay on top of the players the UConn staff is interested in. But I thought it would be a good time to trying to answer the "why" part of recruiting.

Every year I get the e-mails. Why aren't they looking at players A, B and C, they are rated higher than the ones UConn is currently recruiting. My answer is always the same, the only recruiting service I concern myself with is the one run by Geno Auriemma and Chris Dailey.

After Sunday's win over Georgetown, Auriemma addressed the subject of what he looks for when he is in attendance at a high school game. I think the quotes give a pretty good indication that character is more important to Auriemma than characters.

"I just watched a couple of high school games in the last couple weeks," Auriemma said. "So I go around the country and I watch the games. Player A doesn't talk to any of her teammates, they don't talk to her. They win and they win big but you could tell this kid does not have a great relationship with her teammates. Then you watch Team B and this kid is the best player and every kid on their team is like (celebrating with them) and they are interacting so you make a little bit of a rash judgment 'that kid there is unselfish, wants to win and all her teammates like her even though she is a first-team All-American. That kid right there, that kid doesn't get along with her teammates for whatever reason.'

"Once talent is equal, you try to look for those kinds of things that may separate one kid from another. Sometimes you are right, sometimes you are wrong. fortunately for us, we have been right more times than we have been wrong. We've been wrong a couple of times."

Please save your time and don't e-mail me asking who he was talking about. I don't get my kicks piling on 16 and 17 year old kids. The fact is that Auriemma and his staff like Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (who has already committed), Betnijah Laney, Kiah Stokes and Bonnie Samuelson because they have all been offered scholarships but as far as whose attitude turns Geno or his coaches off, you'll need to find another place to get that sort of info.

ALL-STAR GAME TOMORROW
Former UConn star Diana Taurasi will be starting for the Rest of the World squad in Tuesday's EuroLeague All-Star Game at Gdynia, Poland while Connecticut Sun teammates Sandrine Gruda and Anete Jekabsone-Zogota will play for Europe. The game will tip at 7 p.m. in Gdynia which, if my math is correct, is 1 p.m. in Connecticut.

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