All the positive vibes making their way around Gampel Pavilion Saturday afternoon came screeching to a halt  less than two minutes into the Senior Day game against Seton Hall.

The visions of Caroline Doty favoring her left leg as she limped off the court brought a hush over the crowd of 9,107. Doty has been dealt a rugged fate over the last five or six years with a series of serious knee injuries but through it all she has persevered. It seemed to be too cruel to imagine that her career would come to an end on the day when she was being celebrated along with her fellow seniors.

Doty was in obvious pain as UConn athletic trainer Rosemary Ragle began to examine her. It didn't take long for Ragle to realize that it was not another issue with Doty's oft-injured left knee. Before long Doty was bending her knee so Ragle to get a closer look at her ankle and her foot and you could almost hear the crowd breath a collective sigh of relief.

The irony of Doty receiving medical treatment on Senior Day was not lost on the fifth-year senior.



"It was more of 'you've got to be kidding me' tape me up and I am going back in," Doty said. "It is the way things work out. The situation was 'really? Is this really going to happen?' I had Rosemary tape me up and take care o me like she always does and got right back on the floor. I had to see Rosemary. Rosemary had to take care of me one last time.

Doty checked out of the game just 1:37 into the game and did not return until there was 9:32 left in the first half.  She played 17 minutes, made both of her field-goal attempts and finished with five points, five rebounds, three assists, a steal and two blocked shots in the 90-30 win despite dealing with some more pain than usual.

"It was definitely a stinger but we got ice on it and it was nothing, we'll get treatment and it will heal," Doty said.

AURIEMMA NOT WORRIED ABOUT COACHING MILESTONES

When UConn coach Geno Auriemma was asked about joining Stanford's Tara VanDerveer as the only Division I women's basketball coaches to win 400 games in one conference, his reaction was little more than an indifferent shrug. But, being the volatile competitor he is, Auriemma used to innocent inquiry as a chance to fire back at critics saying this group can't win the big game and they have a lot to prove when they play at Notre Dame a week from tomorrow.

"We just won a regular season game on Senior Night but obviously if we don't win next Monday night we are not going to win the national championship," Auriemma said. "Today was just a game so a week from this Monday, if we don't win that game there is no chance finishing out the season so we know we have a real busy week coming up for us because that game is going to determine the season and also the future career of a lot of these kids so I don't want to get too excited about tonight."