Before UConn plays DePaul tomorrow, the respective head coaches Geno Auriemma and Doug Bruno as well as UConn senior forward Maya Moore and video coordinator Keith Anderson will get a chance to pose with the FIBA World Championship trophy and will receive rings for being part of the gold medal winning U.S. team.

The trophy will be taken to the NBA All-Star game and make some other rounds before being sent back to Auriemma, the head coach of the U.S. team, to display the trophy wherever he chooses.

At the NBA All-Star game rings will be presented to the members of the U.S. men's team which also won the gold medal since a good number of them will be playing in the all-star game.

Carol Callan said there will be rings presented to the members of the women's championship team but more than likely the ceremonies will take place at various WNBA games.

GENO REACTS TO LATEST NEWS ON TAURASI
Auriemma had no reason to question his former player when Diana Taurasi said she did not take the banned substance modanifil which a Turkish lab said was in her urine sample when she was tested after a game with Fenerbahce. With the news that Taurasi passed a lie detector test, I asked Auriemma for his reaction to the latest turn of events.

"When I heard about that, I was anxious like anybody else to find out where it was going to go," Auriemma said. "This could take a lot of different turns. From what I've heard recently, the questions that have been raised about the methods used at that lab certainly aren't typical of what you'd expect from a testing facility so in that regard it opens the door to an awful lot of questions. Diana passing the lie detector test puts her in a favorable light that 'I am telling the truth.' If that mechanism is to be believed as one of the factors in provong somebody's guilt or innocence ... I have believed her all along, whether it has turned out to be a true belief."

Auriemma knows there will be a stigma attached to Taurasi's name even if she is found innocent of taking the banned substance.

"It's awful because even when her name is cleared and I really believe it will be, there will always be that stigma attached to her that someone threw out there," Auriemma said. "All she can do is weather this and do her part then go on from there to kind of build the kind of career that will make people remember all the things that she is going to do as opposed to this one incident."

Here are some other tidbits of info off Friday's practice.

There are about 800 tickets left for tomorrow's game. ... Maya Moore, who can set an NCAA Division I women's basketball record by scoring in double figures for a 135th time, is currently the nation's leading scorer just a fraction ahead of James Madison's Dawn Evans. Delaware's Elena Delle Donne has a higher scoring average but hasn't appeared in enough games to count in the stats. ... Auriemma will be auctioning off the Brioni ties he wears at games during February to raise money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Visit www.uconnhuskies.com following the conclusion of each game and follow a link to the bidding page. Auriemma said he is hopeful that each tie will bring around $400-500.