Jen Rizzotti completed the USA Basketball Triple Crown by winning gold medals as a player, assistant coach and head coach.

In 1996 she was a member of the championship team at the R. Williams Jones Cup. A decade later she was an assistant to DePaul's Doug Bruno on the U.S. squad which won the 2006 FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship for Women. Rizzotti was the head coach of the U.S. squad which rolled to the 2010 FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship for Women title winning its five games by an average of 55.8 points per game.

"It's a great honor," Rizzotti said. "I take a lot of pride working with USA Basketball, it means a lot to me."

Rizzotti, whose agreement with USA Basketball is a two-year commitment as she will be head coach of the U.S. squad competing in the 2011 FIBA U-19 Championship for Women, knows that her role comes with significant responsibility.

"There's more pressure as a coach," Rizzotti said. "As a player you look at these events as being similar to all-star games but as the coach you want to make the players get the best of the experience."

Although Rizzotti is not on the committee which selected the U-18 squad and will select the U-19 team, she knows the squad she coaches next year will be a star-studded one as the pool of players from both teams will vie for 12 spots.

"I got to see the U-17s because they trained with us (in Colorado Springs) and it's going to be very competitive although I think the kids going (to college) could have an advantage."

Two of those players headed to college as UConn signees Bria Hartley and Stefanie Dolson. Hartley said she was planning to fly straight to Connecticut from Colorado Springs on Monday while Dolson is heading home on Monday before making her way to the UConn campus on Tuesday.

Rizzotti had plenty of praise for two of UConn's five incoming freshmen both as players and people.

"She's an outstanding player and she is very coachable, she wants to learn and wants to get better," Rizzotti said. "I think she is going to be a great player at UConn."
Rizzotti has similar praise for Dolson, especially her thirst to be challenged which is a must for any player going to play for UConn's Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, his equally demanding associate head coach Chris Dailey and the rest of the top-flight Connecticut coaching staff.

"She's an outstanding player and she is very coachable, she wants to learn and wants to get better," Rizzotti said about Hartley. "I think she is going to be a great player at UConn.

"I talked to her about playing hard on every possession and observe how each player plays and what they (are comfortable doing)."

As for Dolson, Rizzotti said "She is a great finisher and I am always teasing her because I expect her to make every shot. She has great hands and great footwork and I think she's going to be a good player at UConn as long as she keeps doing what they ask her to do.

"She wants to get better and wants to be an All -American and she wants them to push her. That's the right attitude for a kid to have who is going to be coached by Geno and Chris.

"She's not going to be compared Tina Charles because she is just a different type of player but think of some of the other bigger players (at UConn) like Kara Wolters, Paige Sauer and Rebecca Lobo."

I asked Rizzotti if it was going to be strange come December when there is no UConn game on the schedule since the former UConn star took her Hartford squad against the Huskies in each of the last six Decembers.

"Not really, I don't think I feel like that at all," Rizzotti said.

Rizzotti said she will play UConn again but her goal at the current time was to entice more teams from BCS conferences to sign up for home and home series with the Hawks something that was never going to happen with UConn.

"We're always going to have a tough (non-conference) schedule even though we aren't playing UConn," Rizzotti said.