Although Marisa Moseley didn't play for current Boston University head coach Kelly Greenberg and did not have the scouting responsibilities, it was still special for UConn assistant coach Marisa Moseley to go up against her alma mater.

"I had a great four year experience," said Moseley, who played for the Terriers from 2000-04 after was the third all-time leader in blocked shots when she graduated. "It was close to home for me and I got to play quite a bit from freshman year on and I had a great coaching staff and it was a good, all-around positive experience."

Moseley was on the BU team which lost to UConn 91-44 in the first round of the 2003 NCAA tournament. The junior forward had six points, four rebounds and three assists.

"I remember we got blown out by about 40 points, it was a real intimidating place to come into at Gampel but it was exciting," Moseley said. "I like to say that they had to go through BU.

"Kelly has done an awesome job with the program. I think she has pushed the program, they had an undefeated (conference) season a couple years ago and they were awesome. it was good. It changed my life and gave me an opportunity, it afforded me to come and work here."

Moseley, who is in her fifth season as an assistant at UConn, works with the post players so I asked her for her thoughts on how well junior Kiah Stokes has been playing.

"Her biggest thing has been consistency since she has gotten here, there was never a question of whether she had the skill or ability," Moseley said. "She is extremely cerebral and she knew what we needed her to do but it was just pushing through and now that she has risen to that (level) she needs to stay there to give us even more. You never want injury but if you are going have people step up and she has taken advantage of it and so has Brianna Banks and that is what you want.

"I just love her since I was recruiting her, she gets along with everyone,will do anything for any of her teammates and what they need now is for her to be consistent."

Just a reminder that USA Basketball will be making a presentation of Olympic rings to head coach Geno Auriemma, who was the head coach of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic squad, as well as to video coordinator Keith Anderson, associate head coach Chris Dailey and assistant coaches Marisa Moseley and Shea Ralph who weren't official staff members but assisted Auriemma.

Breanna Stewart, seen driving to the basket during U-18
training camp in May, is among the Huskies who will be
recognized by USA Basketball tomorrow night.

Also, Bria Hartley will be recognized for being a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. team at the FIBA 3x3 World Championships as well as the three freshmen (Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck) for being members of the United States team which on the squad which won the FIBA U18 Americas title. My apologies for omitting Jefferson from the list of UConn players on the U-18 team when I reported this news a couple days ago.

The ceremony will take place before tomorrow's game with Pittsburgh.

UConn teammates Morgan Tuck and Breanna Stewart 
clowned around a little bit before a U.S. U-18 practice last year

Talented freshmen forwards Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck were eager to add some talent and depth to the post position from the time they decided to come to UConn. They were also eager to get on the court and play side by side as they did on U.S. junior national teams in the last two summers.

However, injuries and inconsistent play have limited the amount of time that Stewart and Tuck were on the court at the same time.

They teamed up for nearly 12 minutes in Tuesday's win over Villanova and the hope is that game will serve as the starting point for the two of them to thrive individually and collectively.


"When the two of them are on top of their games and are playing, they complement each other pretty well they really do," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "I think they have different skills, the two of them and they help each other, they look good together I like the way they play together. I hope I can get them in that situation a little more often. There just hasn't been a lot of time, there haven't been a lot of opportunities to experiment with different things because of the uncertainty of who is going to be available but hopefully in the next month we can try to do a little bit more of it, that is the plan any way."

Tuck and Stewart were teammates on the U.S. team which won the FIBA U-19 World Championship in 2011 and the top two scorers for the U.S. in the FIBA Americas U18 Championship in 2012. Now they want to showcase the on-court chemistry they have built up during their USA Basketball stints for UConn.

It seems only natural that they could play well together as both of them have the ability to score in the lane or from the perimeter.

"I think it comes from when we played together in the summer," Tuck said. "We play a lot together in practice so it was nice to play with her.

"I think it helps that we both can play the same position. If Breanna is shooting the 3 better than she can be outside."

Despite being limited in practice on Thursday as she rested the bone bruise in her right knee, an injury which forced her to miss three games and countless practices, Tuck is expected to play against St. John's tomorrow.

It will be another chance to Tuck and Stewart to try to bring the consistent production that their coaches are asking from them.

"It's not just (proving anything) to us but to themselves that they continue to gain that confidence that we can go out here and get valuable minutes whether the score is up 30 or it is a two-point game and to be able to do that in a game where we do have a big lead where we can build that confidence will get them going," UConn assistant coach Marisa Moseley said. "We had a great practice (Thursday( and we want to build on that.

"I think most of the stuff we are doing right now is mental whether it is the turnovers, not cutting hard, jogging it is not physical stuff, they are in great shape but mentally maybe they over think a little too much and freeze because they are thinking about too many things, should I do this or should I do this or that is not how the play goes instead of just playing."

The casual observer might have walked into the interview room at the XL Center and thought it's been nothing but clear sailing watching UConn's Geno Auriemma, Maya Moore and Bria Hartley accept the Coach, Player and Freshman of the Year awards from the Big East on Friday.

The fact is that it has not always been the smoothest of seas.

Auriemma believes it's been a more challenging rise to the top of the Big East without the graduated Tina Charles and Kalana Greene and with guard Caroline Doty out for the season with a knee injury.

More than ever, Moore has been asked not to settle for 3-pointers and look to get into the lane and be a physical force.

Then there is Bria Hartley, a freshman who walked in and quickly ascended into the starting role but not just any role, but as the starting point guard.

"It's a Catch-22," Auriemma said. "If Caroline is around, then maybe Bria doesn't have to start and maybe Bria doesn't make this much progress this quickly but she probably doesn't struggle as much either. In order to make the progress, she had to struggle. The fact that Stefanie has to start and play that many minutes, that's probably not good. That can't be good when you are a freshman, throw them in and then they look at you and say 'I need a breather.' Tough, who am I going to put in."

In recent weeks, Auriemma has been reminding Hartley that at her current pace she would be the first UConn point guard to have more turnovers than assists since Jen Rizzotti in the 1992-93 season.

"She has taken a lot of grief from me day in and day out," Auriemma said. "What she gets from me isn't even close to what she gets from Shea (Ralph, Hartley's position coach at UConn). She has not had it easy this year. She's in a very difficult position yet the things that we saw from her in high school, she loves the big moment, she loves the pressure. I think for her to come into this environment where everything is magnified and to do that says a lot about her character, what kind of person she is."

As Auriemma mentioned, it is Ralph - herself a former Big East Freshman of the Year - who has been entrusted with Hartley's development.

"Our freshmen this year had a unique opportunity because Bria walked right into a starting spot as did Stefanie," Ralph said. "Without them, we wouldn't be able to do the things that we've done. It's been good to see her kind of embrace that. One of the things I can say about Bria is that she is competitive and she doesn't want to lose and I think you have to have that edge to be successful here because every day we are putting her in situations that are really tough and she fails and fails and fails every day but she is getting better and that is mainly because she is tough, she is competitive, she doesn't want to give up and she wants to win. It is a testament to her to be able to contribute like she has this year."

Speaking of the challenges faced by the freshmen, there is the story that Hartley revealed on Thursday about the freshmen being booted from the UConn locker room from mid-November until early February.

"So much of it is not even punishment," Auriemma said. "It's 'hey, you aren't even part of our team. Go over there with those guys and just show up at practice, you aren't really on our team yet. When you are on our team then you can come back but this locker room is for guys on our team.' You just tell them that to see if you can get a reaction out of them. Then we had a big win and the great negotiator Bria Hartley comes over and says 'Coach, can we get back in the locker room?' I said 'I don't know, CD (UConn associate head coach Bria Hartley) doesn't want you guys in there so ask her.'

"We had a great time with these guys early on. It was more fun than it was anything else, just to see their reaction. We do stuff behind the scenes that if we ever talked about it, you would laugh. They are young and they don't know. Shea, Marisa, CD they are exasperated at practice every day because these guys, there is so much you have to teach them and so much they don't know. It is just a lot for them to get."

Several years ago I was talking with Geno Auriemma after a game in Hartford in general terms about recruiting when he said - and I am paraphrasing a bit "we tend to recruit a small number of players and the players know we are only recruiting a small number of players." It was so simple yet incredible effective.

The end result is usually pretty impressive like the time UConn signed Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Asjha Jones, Keirsten Walters and Tamika Williams or more recently when Tina Charles and Maya Moore committed in consecutive years or the recent commitments from the top-ranked senior (Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis) and junior (Breanna Stewart) in the country. It also leads to situations when the Huskies land just one kid as they did in between the Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi classes and did a couple years back when Kelly Faris was the only recruit to sign with the Huskies. UConn wanted a post player to take over when Tina Charles graduated but zeroed in on a select few which they failed to get until Stefanie Dolson signed with the Huskies. Players like Kelsey Bone and Chelsey Lee opted to head elsewhere but even when that was happening, the UConn staff was not about to recruit a big kid just for the sake of it. Now they have a player like Dolson is seemingly is improving with each passing day. Yes, UConn's selective style of recruiting does leave holes every once in a while but has also resulted in the compilation of some of the sport's best teams.

In the press conference following Saturday's win over DePaul, Auriemma provided some insight into how the Huskies recruit and it was pretty captivating stuff.

"What's happened in the AAU world, these kids don't play to win," Auriemma said. "They just play to play. They show up in a tournament on a Friday night, play a couple games. Show up on Saturday, play four or five games. Show up Sunday and you play all morning maybe and let's go do it again next weekend. The difference is when you watched Maya played is Maya played to win every game. She tried to win every possession. It sticks out so obviously because everybody else is just running up and down the floor waiting for Sunday to they can get in their van, stop at McDonald's and she never played like that. Neither kid Kelly Faris, neither did Tiffany Hayes. I saw Tiffany Hayes at the Tournament of Champions in Arizona. The other team tied the score with five seconds left and I just smiled and said they are going to throw it to her and she is going to score and they are going to win. That is exactly what they did. You try to find those kids who aren't just running up and down and playing, who are trying to win all summer long, 90 games - however many games they are trying to go 90-0. Not every kid wants to do that, Maya does. Hopefully we keep recruiting kids who are like that.

"I am at a age at my life now that I say 'I want you to go (pointing in a straight line) and do that' and a kid says 'why?' then I don't want you on my team. There are a lot of kids coming out of high school today that you have to explain to them why you want things done and I am not in the mood to explain why I want things done. So if I recruit you and say this is what I want you to do, then you just do it. If you are the kind of kid who I watch you play in high school and you don't, then I don't think you are going to do it for me."

Auriemma has said in the past he looks for certain things when he sees a kid play and it has little to do with the way they fill up a box score. Does a kid compete regardless of the score, how do they interact with their teammates, what do they do when the ball is not in their hands. Case in point is a story he told in Saturday's press conference about a high school game he went to see earlier this season.

"This is the thing I don't understand. Doug (Bruno, DePaul's head coach) was there and we sat there was watched the game. We watched the kids play. We looked at each and said 'they all know we are here.' There is nobody sitting in these bleachers but us and these guys are dogging it. I am saying 'if you are not going to play really well now with us two sitting in the stands, when are you going to play hard?' I think the good coaches, we are constantly looking for kids who you say 'go' and they go. I think that's why we win all the time. These other coaches, I think they have to take those chances. If I was trying to build a program here or if I was trying to get to the level we are at right now, I would probably take more chances on kids and I would probably fail more often than not.

"People think recruiting is easy for us. Recruiting is harder for us than it is for anyone else. There are only five kids in America who can play for you. When you think about it. You can’t just go to an AAU tournament and go 1-2-3-4-5 and count 25 kids and go, ‘Yeah, they are on our list.’

Auriemma is blessed to have a staff who share his recruiting philosophies. Associate head coach Chris Dailey was recently named one of the top five college recruiters (regardless of sport) in an ESPN the Magazine piece. Shea Ralph played at UConn so she obviously knows what Auriemma and Dailey are looking for and it did not take second-year assistant coach Marisa Moseley to figure things out.

"Marisa Moseley found that out three days after she got hired at Connecticut," Auriemma said. "She was sitting there next to CD (Dailey) and she goes, ‘That kid right there, we’re not recruiting her, huh?’ and CD goes, ‘Nope.’ She goes ‘How about that kid? We aren’t recruiting her either, huh? Nope.' Then she watches a little more and she goes, ‘That kid right there. We are recruiting her, huh?’ Chris goes, ‘Yeah.’ You learn that the kind of kids winning coaches want or that winning programs want. They stand out and not because of how many points they score. That is not important. So the more of those kids you can get on your team, the more opportunities we can play like we played today or last Monday.

"You saw all the good stuff Kelly Faris did today. Well some people when she was in high school only saw the Kelly Faris that we saw during those three games where she was horrible. So that is what they saw. They thought ‘So that is what that kid is going to be.’ I’m like OK, but I see something different. She is good. She is a winner."

There's plenty of UConn-related events going on in the coming days to make even the most loyal member of Husky Nation in need of a daily planner.

On Thursday from 8-9 p.m. the latest episode of the Geno Auriemma Show will be televised. It will be called "Geno Live" and will feature Auriemma and assistant coaches Chris Dailey, Shea Ralph and Marisa Moseley fielding live questions from the studio audience hence the word "live" in the title. If you don't have a ticket for the event, you aren't getting one so just tune in at home.

On Friday at 3:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. the first of the segments featuring the video shot by UConn seniors Kaili McLaren and Jacquie Fernandes will air on ESPNU.

Of course, Saturday UConn is back on the court at the XL Center for a 1 p.m. game against Providence.

Going back to Thursday, it will be the date of the postseason openers for UConn signees Lauren Engeln and Samarie Walker.

Engeln, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, leads her Laguna Hills team against Rowland in the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Class 2A opener.

Samarie Walker, a 6-foot-1 wing, leads her Chaminade Julienne of Dayton, Ohio squad against Stivers in the first round of Ohio's Division II Springboro Regional.

For those fans who want to sit in and ask questions of a Connecticut basketball coach, Connecticut Sun head coach Mike Thibault, assistant coach Scott Hawk and general manager Chris Sienko will field questions from fans on Monday from 6-8 p.m. at Mohegan Sun's Cabaret Theatre. Questions can also be e-mailed to askthesun@connecticutsun.com.

Just want to pass on some info from press releases that have been come into my mailbox over the last week or so.

First, CPTV will be airing a live edition of the "Geno Auriemma Show" called appropriately enough "Geno Live!" on Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. from the Hartford Club.

Meghan Culmo, a member of UConn's first Final Four team and long-time color commentator on UConn women's games aired on CPTV, will be joined by Auriemma and the rest of his staff (Chris Dailey, Shea Ralph and Marisa Moseley). Questions will be taken from the live studio audience.

The studio audience will consist of CPTV members who have made a donation/donations. There will be no tickets available at the door.

The show will be rebroadcast on Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. and Feb. 20 at noon.

CONNECTICUT SUN MINI-PLANS ON SALE
The Connecticut Sun recently put mini-plans on sale starting as low as $110 per package, with all tickets in the plan discounted from the box office price, both Mini Plans include priority purchase standing for the 2010 WNBA Playoffs.

The Big Game Plan includes eight games as well as the 2010 WNBA All Star Game while the Weekender Plan allows fans who cannot attend games during the week the opportunity to see the Sun play in five games during the weekends. Two other plans, the Pick 6 Plan and the 4 for $48, will go on sale beginning in March.

Mini Plans are available for purchase by either calling 1-877-SUN-TIXX and speaking with a Sun ticket representative or online at www.connecticutsun.com.

ESSAY CONTEST
The Sun is inviting Connecticut students in grades 4-8 to participate in the Second Annual Women in Sports Essay Contest. Students may submit a one-page essay answering the question: Who is your favorite female athlete and why? All essays must be received by the Connecticut Sun front office by Friday, April 9. Sun players, along with members of the organization, will judge the essays.

Entry forms are now available on www.connecticutsun.com .

One grand prize winner will receive an exclusive school assembly with Sun mascot Blaze and/or players to recognize the winning student, essay and school. The winner will be recognized at a Sun preseason game, receive four tickets to a preseason game and have their essay posted on www.connecticutsun.com . Five runners-up, one from each grade level, will receive four tickets to a Sun preseason game and their essays posted on www.connecticutsun.com . The first 50 entrants in the contest will receive a special gift from the Connecticut Sun as well as two complimentary tickets to a Sun preseason game.

As Caroline Doty works her and her surgically-repaired knee way back into shape, there is no such thing as a "minor" milestone.

A couple weeks back the rising sophomore guard was thrilled when she was told she could start running and sprinting. Next up is getting the OK to start cutting, probably in the next couple of weeks. The hope is that she will be able to start playing basketball again by either late August or early September.

"So far so good," Doty said Wednesday during a break in the rehab process. "No complaints at all, it feels great. We kind of go week by week with progressions, every two weeks and go by month marks. I am almost at the fifth month mark and we were really concentrating on jogging, landing right. Now we are working more on plyo (plyometrics), lot of single leg stuff as well as keeping up with the strength, trying to get all the muscles back and working at that. In gym, I'm standing in place and shooting, trying to get my reps up, (doing) a lot of foul shooting and making sure my knee doesn't go in when I bend it to jump. I can't do any cutting yet so I am working on the form and getting that back."

Doty was accompanied by UConn women's basketball trainer Rosemary Ragle who has been stressing patience with Doty even though Caroline wants to be back playing basketball again in the worst way.

"We talked about with her surgeon and because it is her second ACL (tear), it is a different type of graft that it used, we have a different type of time frame," Ragle said. "We can go a little slower and be a little more conservative. Normally people with straight ACLs are going to be back in five or six months. With Caroline, we are looking more at the seven-month mark. At six months (likely somewhere between mid to late July or early August) is where she is going to start some 1-on-1 drills with her teammates, then she will go 3 on 3 and then she will play half-court 5 on 5 so we are looking at having her be a full go by the seventh month."

Doty is taking a biology course in the first summer session and has been taking in some of the pick-up games featuring her UConn teammates. She has been impressed by the amount of work Lorin Dixon had done on her perimeter game as well as the physical fitness of Kaili McLaren who Doty said is working relentlessly on the stationary bike and other cardio machines.

Was also able to speak to Tiffany Hayes who said she (along with Maya Moore and Tina Charles) will be returning to Colorado Springs for the World University Games training camp. The three Huskies are 14 finalists for the U.S. squad and two players will need to be cut to 12 before the team leaves for Belgrade, Serbia. Hayes, who is taking two classes in the first summer session, has only one regret from the summer - she is struggling to find the time to return to Florida to visit her family. Hayes said she did have the chance to chat with UConn incoming freshman Kelly Faris during the USA Basketball trials in May and when she did get to watch the Under-19 trials when she was in Colorado Springs, she was impressed with Faris' game.

Faris' arrival in Storrs is still to be determined. She is currently in training with the Indiana team which will play the Kentucky squad in the annual North/South Classic. Faris is one of 14 candidates for the U.S. team set to compete in the FIBA U-19 World Championship. She has to be in Colorado Springs by July 9 and if she is one of 12 players named to the team, she likely wouldn't be able to come to Storrs until early August since the U19 World Championship will not wrap up until Aug. 2.

Also ran into new UConn assistant coach Marissa Moseley at Gampel. She seems like a pretty nice kid. She has already found a place to live and before long will be hitting the recruiting trail.