When Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis returned to game action she was wondering what was going to happen the first time she took a shot to her injured elbow.

Well, that happened during the Huskies' 80-47 win over California in the Maggie Dixon Classic last week. Although she was grimacing in pain she her elbow struck the Madison Square Garden court, she did not have to leave the game. With the fear factor out of her system, Mosqueda-Lewis could get back to playing with the reckless abandon she needs to in order to be successful.

"I had to (experience) getting hit and not be tentative going for rebounds, going for steals and playing tough defense," Mosqueda-Lewis said after Saturday's practice. "That is one thing I didn't really do in the first game, I just shot the ball basically. There were a couple of times I went up for a rebound and somebody tried to battle me for it and I just kind of let the ball go

"It just hurt because I landed right on my elbow but I didn't think it was anything major. I was like 'dang, that hurt but get back up.'"

NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULE COMING TOGETHER
While there is still some work to do in terms of the non-conference schedule, UConn coach Geno Auriemma addressed the series starting with Notre Dame, DePaul and South Carolina after practice.

"That was Doug (Bruno, DePaul's head coach) coming up to me and saying I really want to continue to series if there is anyway we can continue to do it. I said fine, I will let Deb (Corum, UConn's Senior Women's Administrator) know and you guys can work it out. Then it was a matter of I didn't care where the game was going to be played, he needed that game to be here to balance out the schedule so that was easy, painless. Notre Dame was a little bit more difficult to put together but I did see where (Notre Dame coach) Muffet (McGraw) said we needed the game more than she does so I did appreciate them giving us the opportunity to play against them. I don't know where we'd be without their help these last 10 years or so anytime you get the chance to play the University of Notre Dame, I don't think you can pass that up so we are going to take advantage of that and go for it."

As for a matchup with South Carolina, "I think it was something that Deb said 'how do we spread everything around. The focus of our non-conference  schedule is usually take the five best conferences in the country and then figure out how do we balance it out home and away so how do we get a good mix without getting it top heavy one way or the other. For a while there it got kind of crazy (with ACC schools) because we had Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, Georgia Tech so we feel like we had the Maryland and Duke thing under control, we tried a couple of two or three schools in that (conference) that didn't want to play. South Carolina wanted to play and that is kind of how that came about."