Seeing Maya Moore and Stefanie Dolson entering the interview area inside Alumni Hall gave UConn coach Geno Auriemma a chance to go to work.

Over the years I have discovered that there is a direct correlation between how much he likes and respects his players and the amount of times he lobs playful jabs at them through the media.

So as Dolson took a seat after matching her career high with 21 points in Saturday's 68-38 victory over Providence, Auriemma could barely resist having some fun at Dolson's expense especially when discussing her ability to run the floor and score in transition.

"There is a correlation between getting out in transition, finishing and being a horrendous defensive rebounder," Auriemma said with a chuckle. "The only worse defensive rebounder than Stefanie Dolson was Tina Charles. While Maya and Kelly are rebounding, Stefanie is running the floor, wow that kid can really get out in transition.

"Stefanie, she looks slow, but she can run. You know why? She runs hard and that is the biggest difference. She just runs hard. People think you have to be fast, you don't have to be fast, you just have to run hard and that is what she does."

Dolson has made great strides in the conditioning department since arriving at UConn and while fellow freshman Bria Hartley is struggling to reclaim the form she displayed earlier in the season, Dolson is just hitting her stride. In the last three games she is 23 of 31 from the field and she matched her career high with three straight double-digit scoring games.

"Every game, every practice I try to go in with the mindset that I am going to go in and play as hard as I can and it has worked out for me," Dolson said. "I have been focusing on my defense, running the floor and getting my conditioning level up so I can do those things without getting tired."

Dolson was joined in double digits in the scoring column by Maya Moore, who finished with 11 points. Moore set a career high nine assists and may have posted her first career triple-double at UConn had she played more than 23 minutes since there is a game against.

"I had no idea (how many assists she had)," Moore said. "Sometimes because I have a scorers' mentality I don't keep of how many assists I have so it does make it good to know that I can positively help finding my hard-cutting teammates. I can't get nine assists with my teammates standing around and not working hard so it is a combination of my teammates knocking down some tough shots."

With a game against Oklahoma on Monday and the game well in control, Auriemma sat both Moore and Dolson as both were out of the game for good with 13 minutes to play.

"I think it (the substitution pattern) is more game to game, you kind of gauge the situation inside the game itself, create a recipe for moving people around but it is just going to be that way for the remainder," Auriemma said. "There just isn't the luxury of being able to go two deep on a regular basis. It works both ways sometimes that is why the chemistry between the five starters can get so good sometimes because they spend so much time on the court together."

Providence played without freshman Lauren "Lady" Okafor as the former Hopkins star suffered a concussion in Wednesday's win over Villanova.

"Hopefully when her tests come ack around by tomorrow she will be a little better," Seymore said. "She was going for a rebound, fell back and hit her head. I didn't think she would hurt herself with all that hair back there. I thought it would serve as a cushion.

"We need her for these five games, she is important for us. She is going to get better, be a better scorer. She is going to learn how to pass better but scoring wise she has to improve in that area."

Seymore said he challenged his team at halftime as Providence trailed 41-12 and the game didn't feel like it was that close.

"I was upset with the way we played in the first half because even if you are playing against a great team and they are playing well, you want your team to be able to execute and play hard," Seymore said. "Our transition defense wasn't good. They got a lot of baskets off our transition defense. The second half I just told them that you are entertainers and any entertainer who is worth their salt wants to go out and put a good show on. You have to go out there and put on a good show, do the things we need to do out there in terms of passing, demanding the basketball, being aggressive, rebounding the basketball. I think they did a little bit better but they had some of their players out too so it was more of a matchup (issue)."