Years ago Geno Auriemma convinced former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt of the benefits of having the Huskies and Lady Vols play twice during the regular season before the rivals went back to meeting once per season and finally stopped playing together.

Well, with the potentially bleak future facing UConn if the Huskies remain in the Big East, it may be time for Auriemma to get creative in scheduling once again.

The Huskies can afford to play the College of Charleston and Oakland games when they are teams like Notre Dame, Louisville, Rutgers, St. John's, DePaul and Georgetown in the Big East to help bolster the Huskies' RPI. However with Rutgers leaving for the Big 10, Notre Dame and Louisville bolting for the ACC and St. John's, DePaul and Georgetown among the seven non-BCS schools leaving to form their own league, the makeup of the non-conference schedule could be even more vital in the coming years.

I've been hearing rumblings that Auriemma has been warming to the idea of play home and home series with powerhouse programs like Duke and Stanford so after the Hartford game I wanted to get a sense of how serious he may be on pursuing more games against the elite teams.

"We have talked about it internally," Auriemma said.

"I think there is a lot of downside to it too because if you do meet in the NCAA that is the third time, look at us and Notre Dame so a lot of teams don't want to do that. They don't want to put themselves in that situation. I think it is great for basketball more of those matchups, no question about it. It is (good) for the country if the top 10-15 teams in the country are playing a lot more than they are now, those are more great TV games that help to grow the game.

"That means every single season you are going out to the West Coast, you would probably do there every year anyways."

Auriemma hasn't taken the step of approach the Dukes and Stanfords of the world to meet twice during the regular season and seems likely to do so in the immediate future especially if the seven Catholic schools are around until 2015 as is the current plan.

However, the new look Big East could mean that UConn would not face another conference team with an RPI in the top 50 and enough of the top 15 teams not exactly lining up to play the Huskies, it will be worth watching how the UConn brain trust deals with a significantly weakened conference schedule.