UConn senior guard Kelly Faris is one of three finalists for the WBCA Defensive Player of the Year award.

Faris, who leads UConn with 91 steals, is given the defensive assignment on the opposing team's top player and is the leader of a team which leads the country in field-goal percentage defense and is third in scoring defense.

The other finalists are Baylor center Brittney Griner and Chiney Ogwumike of Stanford. The winner will be announced on Monday at the WBCA Awards Show in New Orleans.

On the list of Stefanie Dolson's "must-see episodes" in the last couple of days was not one of the current hit television shows or one of the most popular movies in the theater.

The viewing period was quite the painful one for UConn's starting center. She watched last year's loss at Baylor and could only cringe as she watched herself pick up a pair of fouls just 4:54 into the game. She remained in the game for an additional 70 seconds and even hit a basket during that time before taking a seat for the rest of the first half. Coming off a forgettable performance against Baylor as a freshman when she committed her first foul 38 seconds into the game and played a mere 12 minutes before fouling out, Dolson was determined to have more staying power in the rematch. Officially, she reached her goal, but in reality she was left with lingering feelings of what could have been.

Dolson engaged in a rigorous offseason conditioning program so she could be in the shape to have a bigger impact in games like the ones against the Lady Bears and their All-American Brittney Griner. She also worked on her mental game. Tired of committing fouls 90 feet away from the basket or being called for fouls setting screens, Dolson wanted to be a more mature, disciplined player now that she is an underclassmen.

In a few hours comes the greatest challenge she will have faced this season.

"I watched a couple clips of us versus Baylor last year and it was like 'why, why did you do it,'" Dolson said. "It is definitely just immaturity and I don't think being ready to play. I've made changes, I am going to make a few changes of how I prepare. My mentality, going in and being more confident on what kind of player I am, how my team is compared to the last two years and know that I have grown a lot and I am just ready for the challenge.

"It's a fun challenge. I am excited to go out there kind of prove myself to others than I am one of the best centers in the country. I am ready and I am excited."

UCONN AUCTIONING ITEMS FOR KAY YOW CANCER FUND
The University of Connecticut is taking part in an online auction and all proceeds will benefit the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.  The auction is live now through February 25.


Below is a list of what is available for auction.

Geno Auriemma Autographed Tie worn vs. Baylor
Geno Auriemma Autographed Tie worn vs. Rutgers
#5 Game Worn Jersey vs. Baylor
#14 Game Worn Jersey vs. Baylor
#23 Game Worn Jersey vs. Baylor
#31 Game Worn Jersey vs. Baylor
#34 Game Worn Jersey vs. Baylor
Courtside VIP Experience vs. Pittsburgh
Team Autographed Poster
Team Autographed Poster

Both UConn coach Geno Auriemma and Kim Mulkey, his Baylor counterpart, have followed the script pretty well in the last few days spouting propaganda about how tonight's clash at the XL Center means nothing in the quest of capturing their respective conference titles.

For the media, this is about as good as it gets. I'd be hard pressed to recall a more worthless string February games UConn has played in during 10-11 years I have covered the Huskies. Other than freshmen Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck starting to gain some confidence and Bria Hartley (before her 4-minute cameo against Rutgers) has shown flashes of returning to her pre-sprained ankle form. Other than that these games have had little benefit for the Huskies. It's no UConn's fault that this could be the worst season in Big East women's basketball in recent memory and teams like Villanova, DePaul, Marquette barely made the Huskies break a sweat. UConn's biggest challenge was trying to keep the score from getting even more out of hand than it already was.

Now comes a test against top-ranked Baylor and the possibilities are endless. I always find myself intrigued by how the coaches choose to attack the opposing team in colossal matchups like this one.

It's safe to say that Baylor's Brittney Griner and UConn's Stefanie Dolson will see plenty of each other and I fully expect Baylor defensive stopper Jordan Madden to draw the assignment on UConn's top scorer Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis. Then it gets interesting. Does Kelly Faris start out on Odyssey Sims? I would say no and that Hartley gets her to start this. If that is the case, does Faris try to keep Brooklyn Pope off the offensive glass or does she try to prevent Kimetria Hayden from being the secondary playmaker?

One of the biggest questions is what UConn does with Caroline Doty? Her steady hand in the backcourt is often overlooked but she could struggle defensively to match up on either Madden or Hayden. Doty will need to have an aggressive mindset on offense and if she can hit a couple of early shots, she could have a chance to impact the game. If not, I'd have to think that freshmen Morgan Tuck and Breanna Stewart may need to eat up the minutes that typically go to Doty and that is especially true if UConn gets down early or gets beaten badly on the boards.

Stewart is also a major question mark. Saying she is in a bit of a funk right now would be a major understatement. Stewart is shooting 33.3 percent from the field in the last three games and is 0 for 7 from 3-point range over that span. I was among those who wrote stories saying that the arrival of Stewart and Tuck should benefit UConn when it faces Griner this year. Well now we will get to see if this is just idle chatter and nobody knows that more than Auriemma who said yesterday  "(Stewart) gets too fast. It is a blessing and a curse, she wants to be really good really fast and that is not going to happen that fast. If it did happen that fast and you would ask me how I would feel about (tonight), I'd feel a lot better." Stewart and Kiah Stokes have the length to make things difficult for Griner but they need to play with confidence.

I'm also very curious to see how the Huskies execute in the half-court offense. It should be noted that the Huskies are the highest scoring team in Division I (and also tops in scoring defense). But when things get difficult, UConn would often look to get the ball to Stefanie Dolson in the lane. With the menacing shot-blocking presence of Griner looming, that can't be the bail-out option. Perhaps even more important is that Baylor's three top perimeter players (Sims, Hayden and Madden) were all in the top 20 nationally in assist/turnover ratio in the most recent NCAA statistical database so it will not be easy to get free points. If UConn's offense bogs down against Notre Dame, what will it do when trying to find room to operate against Griner? A year ago UConn did a nice job early on of moving the ball from side to side to somewhat minimize Griner's ability to disrupt the offense and that has to be a point of emphasis today. Dolson has the range to step out on the perimeter and draw out Griner and she is a top-notch passer so the Huskies have the pieces in place to attack Baylor.

More than a few eyes will be on Hartley. She was still coughing a bit in yesterday's practice and if she is not 100 percent, that won't help the Huskies. Hartley has been a big-game player from the second she stepped on the court. Hartley was just starting to look like the player who earned All-American honors as a sophomore before getting sick. Hartley will need to not only be strong defensively but also make some shots.

It should be a fun one.

Baylor senior center Brittney Griner joined former UConn star Maya Moore and former Duke standout Alana Beard as the only players to be two-time unanimous picks to the Associated Press' preseason women's Division I All-American team.

Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins and Delaware's Elena Delle Donne were also unanimous picks. Maryland's Alyssa Thomas, Sranford's Chiney Ogwumike and Odyssey Sims of Baylor complete the six-member squad.

UConn junior All-American guard Bria Hartley and sophomore guard/forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis were among 11 other players to receive votes.

Former UConn star Tina Charles of the Connecticut Sun earned her fourth WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week award of the season. It was also her ninth career honor.

Charles averaged 17 points, 10.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game as the Sun wrapped up the regular season with wins over Indiana and Atlanta.


Charles won the WNBA rebounding title for the third time in as many seasons and set a franchise record by averaging 18 points per game.

Next up for Charles and the Sun is an Eastern Conference semifinal matchup with New York beginning on Thursday with an 8 p.m. game at Mohegan Sun Arena. The game will be televised on ESPN2 with Pam Ward, Carolyn Peck and LaChina Robinson calling the action.

On Wednesday the draft lottery will be conducted on the 6 p.m. edition of ESPN's SportsCenter

Washington, which finished with a WNBA worst record of 5-29 this season, has a 44.2 percent chance of earning the No. 1 overall pick. Phoenix (7-27) has a 27.6 percent chance of getting the top overall pick followed by Tulsa (17.8 percent) and Chicago (10.4 percent).

Baylor's Brittney Griner, Delaware's Elena Delle Donne and Skylar Diggins of Notre Dame are the top prospects in the 2013 WNBA draft.

If I were asked to give advice to a young player on how to approach the sport of basketball, I would likely make them spend a few hours watching Asjha Jones and Lindsay Whalen not only play the game but their preparation as well.

Obviously I am not alone as the two former teammates will be members of the U.S. Olympic team. Whalen received word of her selection late last month while Jones was officially named to the team today.

There are so many similarities in the way Jones and Whalen go about their business. Neither one of them cares about any individual statistics and are more interested in making winning plays than padding their stats. That is what makes them perfect picks. Sue Bird is the unquestioned floor leader of the U.S. squad. How many minutes Whalen, the only other true point guard on the U.S. team, figures to flucuate from game to game depending on the opponent, pace and way the game plays out. The same could be said about Jones, although it should be noted that Jones was absolutely brilliant in  being named the MVP of the EuroLeague Final Eight. The U.S. team is loaded with frontcourt players. Even after you get by the dynamic center duo of Tina Charles and Sylvia Fowles, you have forwards Tamika Catchings, Candace Parker, Angel McCoughtry and Swin Cash as well as dynamic offensive players Seimone Augustus, Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore capable of playing small forward. But it was hard for the selection committee to overlook the familiarity and success rate Jones has against some of the best players in Europe.

I believe that final spot would have gone to Baylor's Brittney Griner had she not removed from name from consideration. I am sure there are those who could make an argument against Jones. When I picked my 12-play squad I selected Candice Dupree in large part because she was the leading rebounder for the U.S. team at the World Championships, Her numbers at that tournament are superior to Jones in every category except for steals. I don't think there would have been any complaints had Dupree been named the 12th player on the U.S. squad today. But there should not be an outrage about Jones  being named either. She is the consumate pro, an incredibly versatile offensive player who can thrive either at the high or low post and is a standout defender. I am sure there are those out there who have raised eyebrows over six former UConn players being named to play for the U.S. squad coached by UConn's Geno Auriemma. But anybody who has been the six former Huskies (Bird, Cash, Charles, Jones, Moore and Taurasi) play has to admit that each have the credentials to make the U.S. squad.

I've had the chance to see Jones and Whalen play throughout their pro careers so perhaps I am a tad bit biased but they add a professionalism to their crafts and are the type of team-first players that figures to serve the U.S. squad well. They've both had to pay their dues.

I won't be headed to Seattle next month when the U.S. Olympic team gathers for the first time since the squad was officially named but I am hoping to make my way down to American University in Washington, D.C. for the training camp in mid July to see how this U.S. team is meshing.

Baylor's Brittney Griner announced that she is withdrawing her name from consideration for a spot on the U.S. Olympic squad because of an illness to a family member as well as conflicts with her academic workload.

It was thought that Griner was the likely choice to be the final member of the U.S. team but now the door is opened for another player. Certainly former UConn star Asjha Jones is a strong candidate especially considering that she was recently named the MVP of the EuroLeague playoffs. However the first 11 players named to the squad was dominated by frontcourt players so it will be interesting to see if the selection committee chooses a guard like Lindsey Harding, 2008 Olympian Kara Lawson or former UConn star Renee Montgomery to complete the roster.

If either Jones or Montgomery gets the nod that would mean that half of the 12-member squad would have played collegiately for UConn and U.S. Olympic coach Geno Auriemma as Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Tina Charles, Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi were among the 11 players already named to the team.

Here's a statement from USA Basketball about Griner's situation.

"It's unfortunate that Brittney is unable to participate with USA Basketball this summer, however, we have an extremely deep and talented USA National Team program and remain confident that we will field a very competitive team that all Americans will be very proud of," said USA Basketball Executive Director/CEO Jim Tooley. "This in no way precludes Brittney from future USA National Team events; she is a young and talented player with a bright future ahead of her in international basketball and we look forward to her continued involvement. We wish nothing but the best for Brittney and her family."

The last thing Baylor junior center and national player of the year candidate Brittney Griner said to UConn and U.S. senior national team coach Geno Auriemma before heading back to campus after a couple of weeks in Europe was "see you in Waco."

Well, the time for the reunion is quickly approaching.

After a couple of years of trying to get the immensly talented Griner to take part in one of the U.S. senior national team training camps, Auriemma finally got his wish in late September and early October when Griner was there for a series of practices as well as five games against European pro teams.

In the five games the U.S. team played, Griner shared the team scoring lead with former UConn star Tina Charles, had a team-high nine blocked shots and was second on the team with seven rebounds per game. Griner was the leading scorer for the U.S. team in two of the five games. She scored in double figures in the first four games she played including scoring 22 points in a loss to Ros Casares on Oct. 5.

“It was a great experience playing for Coach Auriemma because he is really passionate and he is a great coach,” Griner said. “He was working on my game, just getting big and just playing to my full ability.”

Auriemma was thrilled that Griner chose to come to the latest training camp and he believes there is a chance she could be a member of the 2012 Olympic team.

"We've always in the three years I have been involved with USA Basketball at this level, you are always trying to figure out what is missing that would make our team better," Auriemma said. "Even after we won the World Championship we sat back and said what we do we have to do to make this team better. Brittney Griner's name was always at the top of the list. How can we get her involved? We realized we couldn't make her do it, nobody could make her do it and we just worked pretty hard with talking with her and
Kim (Mulkey, Baylor's coach) and making sure everybody was on board with what we are trying to do and I think she brings something, there is nobody else in the world like her. I don't care who Australia has, who Russia has or who anybody else has. Nobody has anybody else like Brittney Griner.

"I remember Kara Wolters made the Olympic team to go to Sydney. She was the 12th man on the team. She knew she was there just in case in a three-minute stretch she was going to have to play. She never had to because they didn't need her. Brittney Griner might make the Olympic team and might play 20 minutes every night or there might be two games in one game where she wins the game and we win the gold medal because there are things that she can do than nobody else can do on any other team in the world."

Auriemma tells the story of how dominating Griner could be during half-court drills courtesy of her rare dunking ability.

"What I am used to see in drills is stuff we are doing in breakdowns, you throw the ball in there and you work on your post moves and then you realize that every post move she is working on ends with a dunk, one-handed, two-handed," Auriemma said. "You just kind of smile and say I haven't seen that in one of my practices since I coached the guys' AAU team that my son played on. That is how those guys would end
every drill. I just started smiling and saying it must be good to go to practice. I found myself saying that. We would work on something in a game, we are going to screen here and take it, slip the screen and dunk it. She would go 'OK', slip it and dunk it. I was saying 'guys coaches have it easy.'"

Having watching No. 2 UConn and No. 1 Baylor play in a span of three days, the first thought that comes into my head as I look ahead to Sunday's nationally-televised showdown is that I hope I don't see UConn's second-half performance against Seton Hall and Baylor's first-half effort against St. John's.

Something tells me both teams will be a little more zoned in when the ball is thrown into the air a little past 8:30 Sunday night.

I'll start with that I saw on Sunday when Baylor allowed a small but athletic St. John's team to dictate tempo for the first 30 minutes. I loved the Red Storm's game plan. On offense they drove the ball towards Brittney Griner whenever possible and if they couldn't get her far enough away to set up a cutting teammate for a layup, they would kick it out to the perimeter. When St. John's let the game get away in the second half it was in large part because of ill-advised drives right at Griner. While Griner's shot-blocking numbers (she is quickly closing in on Courtney Paris for No. 5 on the NCAA Division I all-time list) are impressive, it is her ability to block the ball and keep it in play which leads to the Lady Bears getting out on the fast break. I fully expect to see UConn try to do what St. John's did during the first half and try to get Griner moving laterally and throw the ball to offensive players away from Griner to limit her impact as a shot blocker.

Defensively, I was impressed with what Mary Nwachukwu was able to do early on against Griner. I doubt Nwachukwu's name made it into too many game stories since she was scoreless (missing all four of her shots) and had just two rebounds, one assist and one steal in 34 minutes. However, she was able to get physical with Griner and pushed the Baylor star off the blocks whenever she could. That style seemed to fluster Griner. Although giving up six inches, she was able to front Griner and teammates would cheat down from the other Baylor forwards to keep Griner from getting the ball. St. John's also did a good job of applying pressure on the ball so they couldn't have an easy time throwing the ball into the post. What this did was open up room for Brooklyn Pope and she responded with 19 points and eight rebounds and give Baylor some open looks from 3-point range.

With all due respect to Nwachukwu, I don't see her as being a pivotal part of St. John's offensive game plan so the Red Storm could afford to let her bang Griner around and if she picked up some early fouls, no harm done. I don't think that is the case with Dolson. I don't see UConn beating Baylor if Dolson is saddled with foul trouble so she will need to be careful just how physical she gets with Griner. Depending how quickly Dolson gets her first foul, I wonder if the UConn coaching staff might go to either Heather Buck or Kiah Stokes early on and use up some fouls.

I also doubt that Odyssey Sims will commit as many silly fouls as she did on Sunday. Once she was out of the game, the Baylor offense seemed like a rudderless ship. Also, Destiny Williams was benched for the first half for a disciplinary matter and she will be available for all 40 minutes against the Huskies. Having those two on the floor brings a different dimension to Baylor.

On UConn's end, I already addressed the Dolson factor. Tiffany Hayes figures to play a key role. If she steps up in a big way, I think she can wreak havoc with the Baylor defensive scheme with her ability to penetrate as well as being able to hit from the perimeter. I would expect to see Hayes and Bria Hartley drive into the lane early and often giving Caroline Doty, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Kelly Faris opportunities from the perimeter.

I have a hunch UConn will try to deal with Griner one on one more often than not and make the other players beat them. They need to keep Pope off the offensive glass and turn Kimetria Hayden and Jordan Madden into jump shooters. I know Hayden has eight 3-pointers but I'd take my chance with her having to knock down shots. More than anything, they need to make Sims' life as difficult as possible. Before Sunday I thought UConn would be crazy to try to press Baylor but watching how out of control Sims was at times bringing the ball up the floor makes me think the Huskies will attempt to extend their defense against Baylor.

I will be curious to see who Kelly Faris matches up with defensively, will she be asked to deal with Griner (even if she is giving up nine inches) or get out on Sims? Perhaps she'll be asked to lock up on either Williams or Pope, two outstanding offensive rebounders. There will be some intriguing individual matchups going on during the course of the game. It should be a fun one, I am looking forward to it.