I have to admit that I'm not really sure how much to make of Saturday's "Senior Day" festivities simply because after the Tulane game there could be as many as eight games remaining in the state of Connecticut for the Huskies.

There's still going to be plenty of time for the trio of Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck to play either at Gampel for the regular-season finale against USF and first two rounds in the NCAA tournament, Mohegan Sun Arena for the American Athletic Conference tournament and Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport for the NCAA regionals.

However, for former walk-on Briana Pulido, Saturday is certainly going to be anything but an ordinary day at the office.

I just filed a story on Pulido which is much longer than my office probably prefers and it has nothing to do with the fact that the apartment complex I lived in during my Miami days is only about a mile from Gulliver Prep when Pulido was a cross country, basketball and track and field standout.

Her story is intriguing on many levels. There happens to be her ambitious goal of becoming a doctor which has resulted in Pulido balancing life as a Division I athlete with a rather challenging academic course load. The way she went from being a member of the UConn track team as a freshman to switching to the basketball court. her emotion upon hearing that she was receiving a scholarship for her senior season and how her insistence that her mom head to the hospital after losing feeling in the right side of her body just may have saved the life of her mother. Hopefully the story will all of those items will be posted on the Register's site in the next few hours.

"I am going to be really happy, my parents are going to be really happy and I just want to enjoy the night," Pulido said.

Pulido knew when she shifted over to basketball that she wasn't going to see an abundance of playing time and she has learned to make the best of the on-court time she gets both in practice and games.

"I knew that going in," Pulido said. "It wasn't really a factor for me or anything. I am on the best team in the nation, I didn't start to get 30-40 minutes, 20 minutes, not even 10, it doesn't matter to me."

It has been a challenging journey both as a student and basketball player.

"The experiences have outweighed that and doing what I have done, I haven't done so bad and I am just cutting myself some slack here," Pulido said.

UConn announced that the 1 p.m. game is a sellout. Also, SNY will be televising the Senior Day event in its entirety beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Don't take this the wrong way because Breanna Stewart is a second-team Academic All-American so she is not merely enrolled at UConn to play for the juggernaut of a women's basketball program.

However, she is somewhat giddy at the prospects of being able to watch the wall to wall coverage of the first two rounds of the men's NCAA Division I basketball tournament with few interruptions.

Certainly the Huskies, who earned the No. 1 overall seed in the women's Division I tournament for a record 10th time, will have some spirited practices leading into the first-round game against St. Francis (N.Y.). But with UConn currently on spring break, there are no classes for Stewart or her teammates to go to until next week.

"I am just happy because Thursday and Friday are my favorite days of the year, all the basketball going on and it is nice I don't have to have class and I can just watch," Stewart said.

Long before she became the best high school player in the country she was just another basketball crazy fan in Syracuse who could barely wait for the NCAA tournament to kick into high gear.

"I don't even know when I started doing that," Stewart said. "It even got to the point where I would beg my parents to let me stay home for these two days so I could watch these games. Some days I won that battle, sometimes I lost but it is so much excitement with how ever many games are playing during the day, the upsets."

Stewart is known for being in attendance at the UConn men's games as well. Along with teammates Morgan Tuck and Kiah Stokes, she received plenty of air time at the nationally-televised American Athletic Conference men's championship game. UConn's quest to win the title and earn an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament came up short but it was still a memorable experience for Stewart.

"It was fun," Stewart said. "To have the American Athletic Conference tournament hosted at XL Center was cool, just to see how many UConn fans were supporting our men even though they came up short, I think everybody is proud of how they fought back."

WHAT'S IN A NUMBER?
There have been plenty of interesting stories over the years about how one teammate will barter to another to get a particular number to wear. So when Kia Nurse started wearing the No. 11 that was donned by Briana Pulido last season, I was curious is there was a bit of negotiating necessary.

As it turned out, that was simply not the case.

Other than her time with the Canadian national team Nurse said "I have always been 11 on any basketball team I have ever played on."

So when the coaches asked her if she had a number preference, she never hesitated.
"When they emailed me and asked for what number, I didn't know how it worked here but I said I would like No. 11 but if that is not possible, that is no problem," Nurse said. "I was fortunate enough to get it. Polly (Pulido) is really cool like that."

Pulido didn't think giving up her number was a big deal so she changed to No. 24 without giving it a second thought.

"The coaches said to me 'Kia would like to use No. 11.'" Pulido said. "I was like 'OK.' I picked another number and that was it. It wasn't a big deal for me. I chose 11 on my own, I had never been 11 at all and 24, it was just a new number."

UConn incoming freshman Napheesa Collier happens to wear No.  24 so if she asked for that number would Pulido change uniform numbers again?

"Sure," Pulido said again without hesitation.

NCAA TOURNAMENT TICKETS NOW ON SALE
Tickets for the first and second round of the 2015 NCAA tournament went on sale today at www.UConnTickets.com.

Tickets are priced per session at $20 for adults and $15 for youth and seniors.
Tickets can also be purchased at the UConn Athletic Ticket Office in Storrs or by calling 1-877-AT-UCONN between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Parking will be available in the North and South Garages for $5 per car.

COACHING HONOR FOR BLACKMAN'S HIBDON
Chad Hibdon, the coach of UConn Class of 2016 commit Crystal Dangerfield at Blackman High in Murfreesboro, was named one of eight WBCA District High School Coaches of the Year.

Hibdon led Blackman to a 32-2 record and second straight Tennessee AAA title. Here are the winners who are eligible to be named the WBCA National High School Coach of the Year.

District 2 – Dawn Karpell, St. John Vianney
District 3 – Scott Allen, Paul VI High School
District 4 – Brian Cosgriff, Hopkins High School
District 5 – Bob Hanson, Dowling
District 6 – Daryl Fimple, North Little Rock High School
District 7 – Will Gray , Desert Vista High School
District 8 – Carl Buggs, Long Beach Poly
District 9 – Chad Hibdon, Blackman High School

There's been one topic I've been wanting to address with UConn freshman Kia Nurse and never got around to it - until now.

A season ago walk-on Briana Pulido wore No. 11 yet this season without fanfare, she switched the No. 24 while Kia Nurse got to wear No. 11.

So is there an interesting back story to all of this? Did Nurse have to buy Pulido dinner, carry her bags on the road? No, not really.

"I misunderstood what was going on," Nurse said. "When they emailed me and asked for what number, I didn't know how it worked here but I said I would like No. 11 but if that is not possible, that is no problem. I was fortunate enough to get it. I have always been 11 on any basketball team I have ever played on."

Nurse never even had to ask Pulido to give up the number, she did so voluntarily.

"Polly (Pulido) is really cool like that," Nurse said.

WILLIAMS JUMPING IN
With all the attention former UConn football star Byron Jones for his 12 foot, 3 inch broad jump and 44 1/2 inch vertical jump at the NFL Combine, I had to ask UConn freshman Gabby Williams if she could have given Jones a run or jump for his money considering that she finished fifth in the U.S. Olympic trials in the high jump back in 2012 when she was just 15.

She was quick to shrug off that suggestion. The broad jump is done so infrequently, Williams probably hasn't even tried for a personal best in that event. How about approaching 44 1/2 inches on a vertical jump.

"Maybe with a trampoline," Williams said with a laugh.
LOOK AHEAD TO AAC TOURNAMENT
Today is the last day of the regular season and seven of the 11 teams have already secured their seed for the upcoming American Athletic Conference tournament.

UConn and South Florida, who play tonight, will be the seeded first and second. Beginning with No. 7 seed Memphis, the pecking order at the bottom of the conference is at set. Central Florida and Cincinnati are seeded eighth and ninth (and get to play on Friday for the right to face UConn in the quarterfinals), Southern Methodist is 10th and Houston 11th.

The only details to be finalized is who will be seeded 3,4, 5 and 6.

Tulsa can clinch the third seed with a win tonight against Cincinnati and Temple would be the fourth seed with a win over Houston and a Tulsa win. Temple could move up to the No. 3 seed with a win and a Tulsa loss.

East Carolina is a game behind Tulsa and Temple. If Tulsa and Temple avoid the upsets and East Carolina wins, the Pirates would be seeded fifth. Tulane has already wrapped up its regular season and the only way it can move up from being the No. 6 seed would be if one of the teams ahead of them were to stumble. A loss by ECU would move Tulane up at least one spot.

It's highly unusual to see sophomore sensation Breanna Stewart be the first of the UConn starters summoned to the bench. But after watching Stewart take and miss three more challenging than necessary shots, UConn coach Geno Auriemma had the quick hook.

The 3 minutes, 7 seconds she spent on the bench seemed to work wonders for Stewart.

“I don’t know what I was thinking," Stewart said. "I kept wanting to do a turnaround jump shot in the post. It is not something that I do a lot. I honestly don’t have a reason for it. I did it, then I did it again and I did it again. Then I came out. Usually when we are around the basket like that we do hook shots.”

Nobody was more surprised to see Stewart's bizarre shot selection than Auriemma.

"It is not easy to clear your head when there is nothing in there, that would be a very difficult thing to do," Auriemma said. "I asked her during the first timeout 'Stewie do we practice those shots you are taking?' She said 'no. I said 'why are you taking them?' She said 'I don't know.' So when people start talking to you like that, you just shake your head. She did it three times in a row so they are kids and you don't know what goes through their heads. It is unlike her, usually she takes the kind of shots that we know she is going to take and we know she is going to make, those first three were just bizarre. She is shooting 90 percent on those jump hooks over the front of the rim  and decided she didn't want to shoot them, they were too easy of something.

"I talk to Stewie all the time about that stuff, all great teams have great players on it so it makes them great teams. I don;'t know if last year we were a great team, we won a national championship but I don't know if we were a great team based on some of teams we've had here in the past. If you have great players on your team, you have a chance to have a great team because every night like when Maya (Moore) was here, Maya played great every night so every night you stepped on the floor you had a chance to play great. Same when Diana (Taurasii) was here, some players they just define what the team is going to do and I talked to Stewie about that. When Stefanie, Stewie, Bria, we don't have Kaleena, but guys who have already done it in the past but have great seasons and great moments and we know they are going to bring that every night we have a great chance to be a great team every night regardless of who we are playing, that is irrelevant who we are playing."

CAR FOR POLLY?

Auriemma is not know to mince words with his players, even the ones he didn't recruit.

So when he watched sophomore walk-on Briana Pulido fire up shot after shot at Thursday's practice, he let her have it.

"Polly (ticked) me off so much yesterday I told her I would buy her a car if she ever gets an assist, that kid refuses to pass the ball to anybody even in practice. This kid high jumped all of last year and comes out here and thinks she is Kobe Bryant so what did she do today? She got an assist and now she wants a car..'"

LIMITED MINUTES FOR BANKS

Although junior guard Brianna Banks started for the second consecutive game, she played the fewest minutes of the full scholarship players and that was by design.

Banks had her foot stepped on in Wednesday's win over Oregon and although it wasn't enough to sideline her, with three games in three days Auriemma said he wanted to limit her minutes.

"Brianna Banks would have played more tonight but somebody stepped on her foot in the Oregon game and it has been bothering her the last couple of days, we had three games in three days otherwise she would have played more minutes," Auriemma said.

NURSE GOES FOR TITLE ON SATURDAY

UConn signee Kia Nurse led her St. Thomas More team to two more victories and now they are one win away from a third consective Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association Class AAAA title.

St. Thomas Moore defeated Northern S.S. 60-41 in the quarterfinals and then topped Pickering 60-41 behind 25 points from Nurse to advance to Saturday's gold-medal game.