While Gampel Pavilion figures to be packed and ESPN2 will be in the house to televise the game between No. 2 UConn and No. 3 Duke, the two coaches have taken part of enough big games not to read more into the high-profile non-conference matchup than they need to.

Other than a possibility that the winner of Monday's game could have the inside track to landing in the Philadelphia Regional since it is the closest of the four regional sites to the two campuses, the game will not impact either program's chances to make a run at the Final Four and national championship.

"I always think that these guys are more of finding out the positives of your team rather than the negatives," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "I love it when people say 'well you know you had that stretch in Pittsburgh game that if you play like that against Duke, you are going to get killed. Well, if Duke played the way they did against NC State in the first half, against us they are going to get killed. No kidding. So it is not the negatives that come out of this game, it is what positives come out of this game. If you do things really well in this game, then that bodes well in the future. That means you can do it against a really good team, you can do it against anybody. If you don't it do in that game at the end of January on a Monday night, that doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what happens at the end of February or at the end of March.

"That is why these games are so good to play. There are absolutely no negatives to these games. At least in my perspective as a coach, that's how I go into these games that if we win, if we do all these things right, if we accomplish this, if we accomplish that then that all bodes well for down the road. If it doesn't work, then we know 'hey, we have to fix this between then and now.' Looking at tomorrow, that is exactly what I am thinking about. We are going to get an opportunity to find out exactly what it is that we are really good at. Our freshmen have one more opportunity like the ones they have already had to take another step towards becoming experienced college players. With each situation like that we find ourselves in, the better they are going to be. That one game, Stanford did not win a national championship when they beat us and we are not going to win a national championship if we beat Duke. I think both teams have a pretty good perspective of what these games are all about otherwise you wouldn't schedule them. If these games we that defining and all emcompassing, you wouldn't schedule them because then you would say that would affect the way we approach the rest of the season. I am not going to do that, I am not going to put them in that situation.

"If you make it life or death, this is our defining moment as a team, you'd better hope everything goes right because it is also a defining moment for you if you are lousy. I don't think that's the case either way. You can't say in that Stanford game, that is who Connecticut is. I don't think so. Or at Carolina, that is why Connecticut is. I don't know, at Notre Dame in the first half or the last five minutes at Notre Dame."

Joanne P. McCallie is 0-4 against Auriemma since arriving at Duke but did beat the Huskies in a game at the Hartford Civic Center on Dec. 29, 2004 when she was the head coach at Michigan State.

"We will learn a lot from this game," McCallie said. "This game is a great opportunity for us to learn about ourselves, who we are and what we want to do out there. That’s an important thing to have. Given the nature of Geno’s teams and how they are coached, it’s a really (good) test that way. I’ve coached at Gampel before and it’s a great place for women’s basketball. Being able to look in the mirror a little bit and be in an environment that will be quite loud, very crazy, there’s simply no way to simulate that environment. It’s not about pumping in a crowd noise. It’s about having the experience.”