UConn's Auriemma thankful for his pioneering Hall of Famer

Rebecca Lobo stood on the court that began the journey from talented local girl to nationally-recognized basketball ambassador and made her latest moment in the sun about everybody but herself.

Her brief remarks to the 8,103 fans in attendance at Gampel Pavilion for last night's 82-47 victory over nationally ranked Cal were quick to credit her coaches, teammates and the Husky faithful for helping her become the first UConn player to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. Then she turned the spotlight onto the UConn legends who followed her to Storrs.

"You are going to have to make room because there are going to be a lot more women's basketball players going into the Hall of Fame," Lobo said before her Hall of Fame banner was unveiled.

Lobo was a national player of the year in college who led the Huskies to the first of their record national titles, she was one of the faces when the WNBA was launched. When a knee injury shortened her promising professional career, she remained connected with the game as a highly respected commentator for ESPN. Some of the people she works with on ESPN's coverage of women's basketball made sure they were at Gampel for her special night even though not even one eyebrow would have been raised had they not made an appearance.

It didn't take much prodding for UConn coach Geno Auriemma to reflect on Lobo's impact on the program, in his life and on the sport.

"The longer you are in this, the more you realize how fortunate you really are to have gotten to know some of these people that I have been fortunate enough to get to know," Auriemma said. "We had dinner (Thursday) night and talked about a lot of things from the beginning to the end. All of sudden, a 17-year-old kid that you recruited is enshrined in a place reserved for the greatest basketball people of all time and she is a part of that. It is hard to think back and say, 'I knew this was going to happen' but at the same time I am not surprised one bit that it happened.

"She is just a unique woman who has qualities that you don't find very often in people. A lot of people have some of Rebecca's qualities but very few if any people that I have ever met have all the qualities that Rebecca has. She is a great person, a great ambassador, a great mom, a great wife, a great daughter, a great sister. She's got every box, she is a professional, she has every single box checked of what you want accomplished in life."