In a perfect world the UConn women's basketball team would not have gone into the season with nine full scholarship players and certainly wouldn't be facing a pair of bruising ranked teams on the road with seven healthy full scholarship players.

However, the combination of having three of the five-member senior class transfer out and some swings and misses on the recruiting trail leaves UConn with a perilously thin roster at the current time.

With Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis out indefinitely with an elbow injury and Morgan Tuck expected to miss 4-6 weeks following knee surgery, the Huskies are pressing forward. They did not request a postponement of either Friday's game against Maryland or Sunday's contest vs. Penn State.

"(With) 13-14-15 (players) not one kid gets hurt ever," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "It all part of the game, it is all part of sports. You have to be able to deal with things like this that happen. Sometimes these things happen in March after you've had a whole year and all of sudden the most important time of the year you are scrambling to try to put it together. The fact that it is November, we have some time to get our bearings with this group. I don't think there will be any fundraisers for us around the country, there won't be any telethons or 'Race for the Huskies' to raise scholarship money or people loaning us players. I think people think we will be OK."

UConn does still have three players on the major preseason award watch lists in seniors Stefanie Dolson and Bria Hartley and sophomore Breanna Stewart. Add in Moriah Jefferson, Kiah Stokes, Brianna Banks and Saniya Chong and that is a seven-player rotation that most programs would be delighted to go into a game with.

This is probably the worst time to have a shorthanded team considering the increase emphasis on calling fouls for the away from the ball contact that restricts freedom of movement. If a couple of Huskies get into foul trouble this weekend things could get pretty interesting.

"I think it is really important, we can't have Stewie (Stewart) in foul trouble like she was against Stanford and it just about being smart," Hartley said. "I think Coach (Auriemma)  put an extra emphasis on defense, if a guy beats you, get out of the way so somebody can help you and just work on recovery because with the new foul rules, you don't want to get those ticky-tack fouls. We want to have our good players on the floor for as long as we can, we are not at as full strength as we would have like but as full strength as we can be.

"I think we will stick to our original game plan because we still have really versatile players. I think it changes how many people we can keep fresh but I think we are a team that works really hard, we are going to be in good shape and we are not going to complain about being tired."

NEW GIG FOR FORMER HUSKY
Former UConn guard Maria Conlon is one of the directors for the Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven Youth Basketball League which begins next month for players in grades 2-7.

Conlon played for three national championship teams at UConn in the early 2000s and also had a stint as an assistant coach at Southern Connecticut State under Joe Frager, who coached Conlon at Seymour High School.

For additional information, please contact Allan Greenberg at (203) 387-2522 x252 or Debra Kirschner at (203) 387-2522 x253.  Register online at jccnh.org.

Maria Conlon, a member of three national championship squads at UConn, is one of 11 players or coaches who will be inducted into the inaugural Seymour High School Sports Hall of Fame.

The ceremony will be held on Nov. 2 at the Colonial Tavern.

Mark Allen (Class of 1970), Vic Cweklinsky (1962), Les Dahn (1957), Jen D’Amato (1996), Ed Esson (1981), coach Joe Gesek , coach Dan Heffernan, John "Chick" Henry (1954), Dennis Rozum (1970) and Ed Shay (1968) will also be part of the class.

Tickets can be purchased at Armads Service Center, Seymour Town Hall or Seymour High School. Email SHSSHOF@yahoo.com for more information. 

Sorry to admit I completely missed the fact that Bria Hartley made the 100th 3-pointer of her career in Monday's win over North Carolina (joining Jen Rizzotti, Diana Taurasi, Ann Strother, Mel Thomas and Maya Moore as the only sophomores to reach that milestone). Then I noticed that Caroline Doty has 99 career treys heading into Thursday's game against Cincinnati. It got me wondering how many times has UConn had three players with 100 career 3's playing at the same time since Tiffany Hayes has 160 career 3-pointers.

I leafed through the UConn media guide and the only other time I could find it happening was during the 2003-04 when Taurasi, Maria Conlon and Strother accomplished the feat.

Hartford and Sacred Heart have had their chances to play the seven-time national champion UConn and it seems as if Fairfield is up next.

The Stags played UConn 16 times but just once in the regular season since 1993. While I was down at the Arena at Harbor Yard on Sunday for the Fairfield/Marist women's game (won by Marist 54-52) I did some asking around and a source told me that "it will happen. I'm not sure if it will be next season or the year but it will definitely happen."

The matchup makes sense since UConn likes to play at least one Connecticut team every year. Hartford didn't play the Huskies this season after meeting up in each of the last six seasons. Sacred Heart stepped into the void left when Hartford coach and former UConn star Jen Rizzotti decided to pursue home-and-home games against teams from BCS conferences instead of playing UConn annually at the XL Center. However, after this year's game Sacred Heart coach Ed Swanson said there would not be a game against UConn on the Pioneers' 2011-12 schedule.

There are some some connections. Fairfield coach Joe Frager is not only a UConn grad and member of the Huskies' baseball team during his time there, but he coached former UConn guard Maria Conlon during her first two seasons at Seymour High School. Then there is Jacquie Fernandes, a member of UConn's last two national championship teams, who is in her first season at Fairfield's director of basketball operations under Frager.

I spoke to Frager on hypothetical terms about what it would mean when he would bring his team up against his alma mater.

"I have a lot of fond memories of my time at UConn," Frager said. "Geno and his staff does a great job. When I was at Southern Connecticut and Seymour High School, I used to go up there as often as I could so I learned a lot from watching him and watching the staff. It will be a nice little homecoming until the tidal wave hits."

Swanson said after this year's game that he only plays UConn when he has a group of upperclassmen in key roles because taking a beating like the one the Huskies can put on a team can damage the psyche of a lesser experienced team.

"That is an astute comment because it is exciting to play the best program in America," Frager said. "Physically it is a demanding game and emotionally it is a demanding game because they beat top 20 teams by 40 or 50 points. You've got to get kids who approach the game the right way. Sooner or later you want to get into the ring with a champion, you want to take your shot so we will."

Ironically, when Frager was the head coach at Division II Southern Connecticut, he was the person pushing hard to set up an exhibition game between SCSU and UConn. By the time the game happened, however, Frager was coaching at Fairfield.

"It is kind of funny," Frager said. "He called me after I got the job here. Jokingly he said I've heard that a lot of teams are afraid to play us but I've never seen a guy switch jobs not to play us. It will be fun when it happens."

I also spoke to Fernandes (and will be putting up a blog in the next day or two about how her first season on the Fairfield staff is working out) and asked her what it would like if she went into either Gampel Pavilion or the XL Center as a member of Fairfield's coaching staff.

"It would be great for that current team to experience playing them," Fernandes said. "Everybody wants to play them and any time somebody who played at UConn plays them, it is special and something to remember. It would be great to go back to Gampel or Hartford. That would be awesome and there would be flashbacks going in even if I would go to the visitors' locker room this time."

Maria Conlon, a member of three national championship teams at UConn, has always had the ability to deliver in the clutch whether it was at the high school, AAU or college level. In the championship game of the New Haven Summer League on Monday, she proved she still has it.

Conlon scored 13 of her game-high 20 points in the second half as Plus 2 won its second straight title with a 55-40 win over the Wolfpack, which is actually the Western Connecticut squad which reached the second round of the NCAA Division III tournament.

When Western Connecticut rising senior guard Heather Lee hit a 3-pointer, the Wolfpack had a surprising three-point lead late in the first half. At halftime, Plus 2 only led by a point.

Since the team doesn't play or practice together that often, Conlon suggested they scrap the zone in favor of man to man. The result was a 24-8 run to open the second half which broke the game wide open. Conlon had six points and two assists during that span including six straight points at one point.

Former University of Hartford star Kenitra Johnson added nine points, 14 rebounds and four blocks for Plus 2, which is also in the finals of the Hartford Pro-Am this weekend.

Karli Spera led the Wolf Pack with 12 points while Lee, who like Conlon is a former Seymour High star, had 11 points and three rebounds. The Wolfpack was playing without WestConn's rising senior center Melissa Teel of Hamden. Teel, the Little East Conference's Player of the Year, is currently in Brazil playing on a team of Division III all-stars. While it's impossible to say that Teel's appearance would have changed the outcome, she would have allowed the Wolfpack to match up much better with Johnson and Kendra Walton down low.

With Teel, Lee and Spera all seniors and the only player gone from the NCAA tournament squad being fourth-leading scorer Katie Moffo, another NCAA tournament appearance could be in the works for WCSU especially since incoming freshmen Molly Poryanda and Caroline Brasa look like they will contrribute immediately for WestConn. Poryanda had all seven of her points in the first half while Brasa had five points.

In the high school final, Hillhouse held off Career 32-31. Colleene Smith had nine points and 12 rebounds, Andreana Thomas had nine points and four steals and Bria Holmes finished with eight points and three blocks. Holmes, a highly-touted rising junior who is gifted enough that UConn coach Geno Auriemma took in a Hillhouse game last season, hit a game-winning free throw with 9 seconds to play. Career's Nicole Anderson just missed a game-winning jumper at the buzzer. Holmes said there's not much to report regarding her recruiting which is understandable since she has yet to start her junior year at Hillhouse.

Jasmine Claxton had eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter to bring Career back.

There will be a story in Tuesday's edition of the Register and a couple of videos from the two championship games on Monday will be available on the Register's web site.

Finally, league founder Bill Dixon told me that the championship game in the New Haven Midnight Madness league (ages 10-14) will be held at Mohegan Sun Arena before Friday's WNBA game between the Connecticut Sun and Seattle Storm, a game that will feature six former UConn stars as Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Svetlana Abrosimova play for Seattle while Asjha Jones, Renee Montgomery and Tina Charles are stars for the Sun.

Upon arriving at Mohegan Sun Arena Friday night, one of the first things I saw was a release announcing that Nykesha Sales will be honored by the Connecticut Sun at the Aug. 15 game against Indiana.

The honor is long overdue and something tells me the process of getting Sales to come into town was not a simple one but I'm glad Nykesha and the Sun have ironed out their differences enough to give Sales her day in the Sun as well as her day at the Sun.

Part two of this entry is a little plug for a story I wrote which is scheduled to run in Sunday's edition of the Register. The focus is on the 30th season of the New Haven Summer League but it just so happened that when I was over at Ralph Walker Rink last week conducting my interviews, former UConn guard Maria Conlon was leading her Plus Two squad to another victory.

After the game was over, I spoke with Conlon, who was a member of the 2002, 2003 and 2004 national championship teams at UConn.

Conlon was joking with the league founder Bill Dixon that she is playing better now than she did in college. When I asked her about that, she said while that it not the case but she is still feeling and playing pretty well.

"I am really good shape right now, I am feeling really good," Conlon said. "I am playing a lot of basketball and it is amazing what you learn when you get older just from watching the sport, coaching and getting older, it affects your game a lot. I feel like I am probably not as good as I was in college but I am right there."