Re: College Basketball 2015-2016 - hitchhiking to Houston
UConn doesn't rebuild, they reload.
Good point.
They are
very selective in who they recruit. Auriemma has a weekly show during the season, and he talked once about how they look at the recruit's family and collect information from coaches, teammates, etc. They do not want the "best" players, they want a subset of the "best": only those who fit their profile of someone who is talented, has a good basketball mind, and is willing to work hard and be coached and be a team player. Nowadays they can afford to be selective.
Last night, the three stars were all gushing about how happy they were to achieve their milestone together as teammates.
One last amazing statistic, to me the most amazing of all. The UConn women's regular-season games have been televised since 1994. Connecticut Public Television broadcast their games from 1994 - 1995 through 2011 - 2012. Then there was
a bidding war over which network would get the next television contract.
[In May 2014,] UConn announced that it had agreed to a four-year, $4.55 million deal with SNY, ending its relationship with CPTV that began in 1994. The agreement with SNY expanded coverage of the Huskies to 13.7 million homes....
The annual rights fee that SNY pays UConn is approximately $1.14 million over the term of the contract that runs through 2015-16. The rights fee in the previous four-year deal with CPTV had averaged $900,000 annually.
Last I heard, CPTV plans to submit a bid again for the next contract, as will SNY. They get good ratings, even during blowouts, because the UConn fans like the aesthetics of how the women play (they have a sublime fast break, for example), no matter what the score. It also is fun to watch how a player progresses from freshman year to senior. For example, the change in Stefanie Dolson from 2010 - 2011 (an awkward, somewhat out of shape player who could barely jump) to 2013 - 2014, a first-team All-American and first-round draft pick and one of the best passers you'd ever want to see.
