Women's Hoops Blog

Inane commentary on a game that deserves far better


Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Happy birthday to Geno, whose team takes on Temple tonight; Owls coach Tonya Cardoza played for Geno, then served for fourteen years as a UConn assistant.

Geno has surely been prepping his team for tonight's game, but he also found time yesterday to go off on university administrators who don't respect the women's game (or who respect it, but don't want to give it more cash).

How can the game, at the DI level, improve? "Athletic directors and university presidents need to make more of a commitment to the women's game so they will put more pressure on their coaches to coach better," Geno said.

"They don't put enough money into the programs to demand from their coaches that they play at that level. All they are doing is fulfilling their obligation by having a women's program and making sure the kids graduate."

Coach Auriemma also found a way to poke fun at Cardoza. (Click the link to see how.)

UPDATE AND CORRECTION, from reader BL: "While Geno was extremely involved in recruiting Tonya to Virginia when he was Debbie Ryan’s assistant, Tonya never actually played for him. After her recruitment, he left Virginia to come to Connecticut as its head coach. Subsequent to her graduation from Virginia, he then recruited her to be one of his assistant coaches at Connecticut."